


Good, Neutral and Evil Walk Into a Tiki Bar

by hollycomb



Category: South Park
Genre: Hawaii, Infidelity, M/M, Pre-Threesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-20 15:19:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 52,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6013801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenny is unemployed and relying on Stan and Kyle's handouts when Cartman calls up in a panic, demanding that Kenny help him retrieve Butters from Kauai, where Butters fled to when he came to the conclusion that Cartman was cheating on him. Cartman swears it's not true but is cagey, strange, and increasingly unhinged. Still, it's a free trip to Hawaii.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kenny was in the half lotus position when Kyle came home from work and started banging around in the kitchen. Stan opened one eye and gave Kenny his benevolent yoga instructor smile before turning toward the noise.

"Kyle?" Stan said when the calamity continued. "Dude? We're practicing in here, can you--"

"The garbage smells!" Kyle shouted, further spoiling the mood in the living room. Kenny withheld laughter, not wanting Stan to get his feelings hurt. They had even lit candles. Kyle poked his head into the room and frowned when he saw them sitting cross-legged on their yoga mats, soft music playing from Stan's laptop. "Where are the garbage bags?" Kyle asked. "I know I bought more. I know we're not out."

"Under the sink," Kenny said. He'd taken the garbage out and replaced the bag a few days ago. It was one of his many attempts to make himself useful around the house and do something, anything other than sleep on their couch, watch bad television and pine for his ex-life.

"We don't keep them under the sink," Kyle said. Kenny could see him attempting to remain calm. Kyle hated his job as an insurance underwriter and was always volatile when he came home, before he made his gin and tonic. "They go in the top drawer under the microwave," Kyle said. "With the Saran Wrap and the aluminum foil."

"Oh," Kenny said, still struggling not to laugh, though as the weeks passed it was becoming less and less funny that he was still here, jobless and relying on their charity. "Sorry. Most people keep them under the sink."

"We don't."

"Kyle," Stan said, halfway between his gentle yogi voice and his regular one.

"What?" Kyle snapped.

"We're doing a practice. We'll be done in ten minutes. Or -- you could join us, if you'd like us to wait?"

"I don't have any clean workout clothes," Kyle said, angrily, as if Stan should have known this and been more sensitive about bringing it up. He retreated to the kitchen. Stan took a deep breath, then exhaled through his mouth in a way that Kenny couldn't help finding uncomfortably sexual.

"All right," Stan said. "Let's return to the moment."

"Kay," Kenny said, though he would rather go drink with Kyle. Before he was living with them, he'd laughed off Stan's many invitations to instruct him in the ways of yoga. Now he felt like it was kind of his part-time job to tirelessly twist himself into shapes at Stan's request.

When they were finished, Stan suggested hydrating and Kenny took a few sips of water from Stan's glass before helping himself to a beer from the fridge. He'd told himself when he moved in that he would use as few of their resources as possible, but he hadn't yet felt as if he didn't need a beer after a long day of no work, no wife, no prospects.

"How was it?" Kyle asked, with a tinge of something like jealousy that made Kenny feel like Kyle had walked in to find him sucking Stan's dick or something. Stan's yoga teacher schedule was flexible and irregular, and sometimes they spent the whole day at home together. Kenny shrugged.

"Good," he said. "I elongated my spine."

Kyle rolled his eyes and handed Kenny the bag of stinking garbage.

"Take that out for me," he said. "Please," he added, possibly because Stan was giving him a look.

It had begun to sleet outside, but Kenny lingered on the driveway anyway, enjoying the cold after forty minutes of yoga that had left him sweating. He closed his eyes against the sleet and wondered if he should take a shower before dinner. It seemed kind of pointless, like most potential showers of late.

Kyle's mood improved while he helped Stan cook dinner, as usual, and Kenny tried to help, too, washing dishes as Stan finished with them.

"It's perfect night for minestrone," Kyle said, for the second time, when Stan set the big pot of it to simmer. Stan smiled at Kyle in agreement, again, and kissed his cheek. Kenny looked out the window at the sleet, which had turned into something more like hail. He almost exclaimed aloud with joy when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Immediately after his divorce there had been lots of calls from friends and family, but for the past few weeks it had been so dead he was considering canceling his data plan entirely instead of scaling it way back. He was slightly less enthused when he pulled his phone out and saw that it was Eric Cartman calling.

"What does that asshole want?" Kyle asked, craning his neck to see the screen. "Don't answer it."

"I have to," Kenny said, desperate for some kind of human contact that wasn't Stan's sympathetic coddling or Kyle's restrained tolerance. He loved them both more than he loved his actual brother, but lately he felt like he a giant who was crowding their cozy hobbit hole. "I'm curious," he said, and he answered the phone. "Eric," he said, turning away from Kyle. "Long time no--"

"I need your help," Cartman barked, with the tone of someone who was confident that he absolutely deserved to have it. "It's Butters. There's been a disaster."

"He -- what happened?" Kenny walked out of the kitchen, imagining Butters lying in a pool of blood on Cartman's living room floor, the murder weapon still clutched in Cartman's free hand. He heard Cartman take a sip from something, ice clinking in a glass as he swallowed.

"He's gone rogue," Cartman said, slightly breathless. "He flew to fucking Hawaii in the middle of the night. He left me a fucking note."

"Okay," Kenny said. "But what happened?"

"Nothing! There's no rhyme or reason to it, Kenny, okay, he's an emotional time bomb."

"Hmm." Kenny hadn't really spent much time with Butters since he moved back, since that would have required Cartman's leering presence, but he knew Butters well and didn't feel that characterization of him was accurate. "Well. I guess he needs some time to cool off."

"That's bullshit, he's had time, he's been there two weeks! He won't answer my fucking calls, his 'native' friends won't tell me what's going on, I'm eating at goddamn Wendy's for lunch and dinner. Every night! My toilet is clogged, Kenny."

"Ah, god. What do you want me to do about it, exactly?" He needed the money, but wasn't quite desperate enough to take a job as Cartman's plumber.

"He says in the note that he's never coming back," Cartman said, audibly deflating. Kenny really hoped he wouldn't cry. If he cried, Kenny would have to go over there and make sure he wasn't suicidal. Cartman and Butters had been together since high school. Butters was a kind of organ that Cartman needed to function, as far as Kenny could tell. Cartman's importance to Butters was more mysterious, and Kenny was surprised that this was the first time Butters had walked out.

"What did you do?" Kenny asked. "You must have--"

"I didn't do shit! I've got stress, okay, I've got a lot of stuff going on, and maybe I haven't been that attentive or whatever, but the little fucker's going to accuse me of cheating on him, in a fucking note, and then just go? Fuck!"

"Is he yelling at you?" Kyle called from the kitchen. Kenny shook his head.

"Were you cheating?" Kenny asked.

"No! What the fuck! Since when have I been a disloyal person? Huh? I've been fucking the same ass since my balls dropped! His!"

"Okay, Jesus. Look, I sympathize, uh. But he hasn't gotten in touch with me or anything, so. I don't know how I can help."

"Don't be coy with me Kenny." Cartman took another audible gulp of whatever he was drinking. "You have inside information about Butters retrieval, Kauai-style."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but okay."

"You have no -- are you stupid? Do you seriously not remember that you went there with him when you were kids? That you brought him back and he was all sane again and shit?"

Kenny groaned and sat down on the couch. He did remember that. He remembered walking down the beach and liking it when Butters reached over to take his hand, beaming. Liking it when Butters fell asleep on him during the flight home, spilled onto his lap, the armrest between their seats pushed up to allow for cuddling, which had seemed exempt from interpretation as they floated through the sky with the cabin lights off. Every memory of that trip became quite important to Kenny when he realized years later, too late, that he'd had and still nursed an enormous crush on Butters, who was by then already taken by Cartman.

"I remember," Kenny said. "But--"

"Good, because I need you to utilize those skills again. I'll be there to oversee your progress, of course. We leave in two days."

"I -- Cartman, I can't fly to Hawaii. I'm unemployed. I can't even pay my cell bill this month."

"Who said you'd have to pay? As I'm hiring you to perform a service, I will pay your expenses, including airfare. Accommodation has been arranged for. I'll even pay for your fucking mai tais if you do a good job at knocking some sense back into him."

"Are you serious?" Kenny glanced at Stan and Kyle, who were giving him concerned stares from the kitchen doorway. "You're offering me a free trip to Hawaii?"

"Fuck free, you'd be in my employ! Do you even need to think about it, ya fuckin' bum? You're homeless, penniless, and you've got all the time in the world. Come get Butters back for me and I'll pay your goddamn phone bill."

"Uh," Kenny said. "Let me call you back."

"Don't -- Jesus, don't go discuss it with your goddamn babysitters. Am I on speaker? Is Kyle already wagging his finger at you? You're an adult, asshole! You don't have to consult Mom and Dad Junior. Will you do this for me or not?"

"Fine!" Kenny said, exhilarated by the thought of being in Kauai with Butters again, and on Cartman's dime. "Fine, okay. If you're serious."

"I'm dead serious. A car will pick you up at seven o'clock in the morning on Friday. And don't bring any bags you'd have to check, I'm not paying for that shit."

"So I guess we're not flying first class?"

Cartman answered that by hanging up. Kenny laughed to himself and turned to Stan and Kyle, who wasn't wagging a finger but looked like he already had some ideas about what had just transpired and how Kenny should proceed.

"What's going on?" Stan asked. "Cartman's going to Hawaii?"

"Yep." Kenny pocketed the phone and headed toward them. "And so am I."

"What?" Kyle said. "With him? Why? Did Butters leave him?"

"Seems that way, yeah."

"Ha! I knew it. I saw Cartman crying in Rite Aid three days ago."

"Aw," Stan said. "You didn't tell me."

"Yes, I did. You had too much beer that night."

"No, I -- are you sure you told me? I didn't drink that much--"

"So I'm going to Hawaii," Kenny said, annoyed. "Cartman wants Butters back, and he thinks I can help. He's paying for everything."

"This sounds like the worst idea ever," Kyle said.

"Why?" Kenny asked. "It's a free trip. Even if Cartman's stupid plan doesn't work, it's no skin off my ass." Kenny was already envisioning a double cross: Butters realizing that he should have been with Kenny all along, reaching for his hand on a beach at sunset.

"It's never that simple with Cartman, dude," Stan said. "And you're, you know. Emotionally vulnerable, still."

"So what?" Kenny said, slinking around Stan and going for the beer that he'd left on the kitchen counter. "Everyone's emotionally vulnerable."

"Except sociopaths," Kyle said. "Such as Cartman."

"He's not quite a sociopath, though. He was crying, like you said. He has feelings."

"God! Why are you defending him? It's about time Butters left that sack of shit in the dust. Good for him!"

"Alright," Kenny said, and he took a swig of beer. "Look at it this way. Butters is fleeing a bad relationship. Cartman is stalking him to Hawaii. But I'll be there to keep him in line. It's a win-win."

"You're insane," Kyle said. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Won't you be glad to have your garbage bags in the right place while I'm gone, at least?"

"Oh -- Kenny!" Kyle smacked his drink on the counter and hurried to Kenny, surprising him with a hug. "Don't go! I wasn't really mad!"

"Yeah, dude," Stan said. "We'd miss you."

"I won't be gone that long," Kenny said, though Cartman hadn't told him what the duration of this trip would be. He hugged Kyle back, touched and a little alarmed by his clinging.

They ate their minestrone together at the table while the wintry mix outside transformed into heavy snow. Kenny imagined being sun-kissed on a beach with palm trees swaying overhead, Butters putting sunscreen on his back. He tried to insert Cartman into this mental image and couldn't manage to do it. On the couch that night, trying to tune out the sound of Kyle's sex moans in the distance, he smiled up at the ceiling. Whatever transpired in Kauai would probably be weird, but he was needed there, essential to the mission. It had been too long since he felt like he was needed anywhere.

*

Kenny used fourteen dollars from his dwindling bank account to buy some travel-sized things at Wall-Mart the following afternoon. He had always fetishized the travel-sized section, the little bottles of shampoo and tiny bars of soap. Even a mini-mouthwash seemed essential to any traveling that he did, though he never used mouthwash at home. Growing up, he had assumed that people who traveled always visited this section before getting on a plane. The only vacation he'd had back then was the trip to Kauai with Butters, and he had been in too much of a hurry, upon departure, to realize his fantasy of buying small toiletries for the trip.

"It's over a month now," Kyle said when he was driving Kenny back from the store. He'd joined Kenny on his shopping trip, allegedly because he needed a new shower curtain liner. He had been bizarrely attached to Kenny since his announcement that he would be going away for a while.

"Over a month?" Kenny said.

"Since the legalization. Still nothing. Let's fucking face it. He doesn't want to marry me."

"That's literally the craziest thing you've ever said." They had had this conversation many times since Kenny started crashing on Stan and Kyle's couch, pretty much any time Stan wasn't around. "Why don't you just ask him?"

"Um, because I don't covet the experience of soul-crushing rejection?"

"Kyle, you've lived together, what? Ten years? Since Stan left college? What the hell makes you think he wouldn't want to marry you?"

"The fact that he legally can now and he hasn't asked, mostly."

"Maybe he's planning a really big proposal and needs time to pull it together."

"Stop saying that. You know that's not Stan's style. He would -- if he was going to do it, he would have emotionally gotten down on one knee, no ring, the moment he heard the news. He didn't even cry when I told him, Kenny. He just said 'whoa, awesome.' Put that on my fucking tombstone, Jesus Christ. 'Whoa, awesome.' What the fuck."

"Now you're just ranting," Kenny said, reaching over to squeeze Kyle's shoulder.

"And you're running off to Hawaii with fucking Cartman," Kyle said, ignoring him. "Leaving me alone in my silent misery. Stan is getting popular on YouTube, have you seen? The new yoga videos are getting, like, well over a thousand hits within the first two days. He's going to become a celebrity and leave me, that's the plan. It's all clear to me now."

"I think you're aware that you sound like a lunatic," Kenny said. "But I have to ask. This is all hyperbole, right? You're not actually this insecure?"

"Did you suspect anything?" Kyle asked, mumbling. "Before Glory left you?"

"This isn't about me and Glory. We weren't like you guys--"  
"But did you?"

Kenny groaned. "Well," he said. "She didn't so much leave me so much as fire me and kick me out."

"Why are you avoiding the question? You knew, didn't you? The person who gets left always knows, subconsciously. In hindsight." Kyle swallows and flexes his hands on the wheel. "I had to ask him to fuck me last night. The first heavy snow of the winter and he wasn't even trying to fuck me. Fucking during the first heavy snow is our tradition. Or, it was."

"Sounded like you had some pretty good sex anyway,” Kenny said. He wasn’t entirely comfortable admitting that he’d overheard it, but Kyle was going off the rails fast. “Maybe you should take a lesson from that."

"Huh?"

"You asked for sex, and you got what you wanted. I'd bet you a million dollars that asking Stan to marry you would go the same way."

"You don't have a million dollars. And if I did that I'd always know that it was my idea. The sex is better when he initiates."

"Marriage is not sex."

"You know what I mean," Kyle said, and Kenny did. He had considered just telling Stan about these excruciating conversations with Kyle about the legalization of gay marriage and why they weren't planning their ceremony, but if Kyle ever found out that Kenny tipped Stan off to Kyle's desperate desire to get married, the marriage would be nullified in Kyle's eyes. Kyle seemed to need it to happen in a certain way that had already not happened and now couldn't happen. Kenny sympathized but also wished Kyle would grow up. He was pretty sure Stan didn't even realize that being with someone other than Kyle was a physically possible thing. It would be like asking him to walk on the ceiling.

Still, Kenny shared Kyle's surprise that Stan hadn't proposed yet.

Kenny packed his bag for Hawaii that night, slightly skeptical about a car actually arriving in the morning and a plane ticket in his name materializing. All he could do was hope that Cartman was telling the truth and not trying to sell him into slavery or something. Cartman was 'in real estate' in some capacity that Kenny didn't fully understand, and the rumor around town was that he wasn't doing well financially. He'd developed a reputation as a gambler, and was always posting pictures on Facebook of random jaunts to Vegas, sometimes featuring Butters looking very drunk in his lap at the poker table.

Leftover minestrone was served for dinner, and this time they ate it in front of the TV, watching the Broncos play Thursday Night Football. Kenny checked his phone obsessively, but didn't have any text messages from Cartman about preparing to fly to Hawaii tomorrow.

"What are you going to say to Butters if you find him?" Kyle asked during one of the commercial breaks. He was snuggled under Stan's arm, a blanket draped over their laps. Kenny wanted to shake Kyle and make him wake up to see that he was pining for something he already had.

"Well," Kenny said. "First of all, it's not really a question of 'if' we find him. It's a pretty small island, and Cartman knows Butters' friends there."

"Okay, so what are you going to say?"

"What did you say last time?" Stan asked. "To get him acting normal again?"

"It wasn't anything I said. I was just kinda there for him when he needed me."

"Aw," Stan said. "You're good at that."

"You should tell him to stay away from Cartman," Kyle said. "To trust his instincts and not be swayed by his bullshit anymore."

"I guess I'd feel kind of bad about that," Kenny said. "Since Cartman is paying for me to go to Hawaii."

"Fuck that! He's using you to continue to manipulate his sex slave!"

"Dude," Stan said. "I don't think he sees Butters as a sex slave. He was crying, like you said."

"Stan, you have personally seen Cartman cry over dropping his tater tots on the lunch room floor. It doesn't indicate that he cares about anything other than what they can do for him."

"That's kind of a weird metaphor," Stan said.

"I like it," Kenny said. "But Stan is right, Cartman cares about Butters. Doesn't mean he's right for Butters, but he cares a little, at least."

"A little?” Kyle said, squinting. “A little, really? Butters deserves more than a little care from his fucking life partner, for fuck's sake."

"You don't even like Butters," Kenny said.

"So? He's still a person. He deserves stability and support, not Cartman's puny dick."

"Dude," Stan said, hugging Kyle more tightly. "Calm down."

"I just can't believe Kenny is doing this!"

"Wouldn't you take a free trip to Hawaii if you were unemployed?" Kenny asked.

"Not with Cartman!"

After Stan and Kyle retired to the bedroom to do whatever it was they did that made Kyle moan so shamelessly, Kenny lay in the dark and worried that Kyle might be right. If Cartman did as he said he would and showed up in the morning to whisk him away to Hawaii, Kenny would still have to endure an eight hour flight with him, plus whatever shenanigans Cartman got up to in Kauai. Kenny was good at dealing with difficult personalities, but Cartman's was uncomfortably pitiable at times, and if Butters did jump at the chance to hold Kenny's hand on the beach, Kenny would still have to account for weeping, rejected Cartman. He could be brutally defensive when he was feeling low, but he could also be pathetic and raw, and Kenny wouldn't enjoy watching him cry in a Rite Aid or on a beautiful beach.

Kenny's cell phone alarm went off at six, and he got up to brush his teeth and wash his face. His bag was all packed, and his stomach was a little pinched with anxiety. He really wanted this to be real, to wake up tomorrow in Kauai and find Butters badly in need of him, happy to see him. He had loved Glory, and watching her fall out of love with him was an ongoing devastation, but it also lit a small, warm hope in him that his actual soul mate was still out there somewhere, waiting for him to show up. He had a nostalgic urge to believe that person was Butters, and that their near miss didn't have to be permanent.

"Don't let Cartman boss you around," Kyle said when he emerged from his bedroom, dressed for work and looking sleepy. "And if you need us to wire money, just let me know."

"Jesus, Kyle, I've been living here rent free, you cook all my meals -- I'm not going to ask you to wire money."

"I'd rather you did that than be financially reliant on him, or stranded when he gets tired of you!"

They heard a car in the driveway, and Kenny's heart lifted with anxious hope. He hugged Kyle, rubbing his back a little when he moaned regretfully.

"Everything's fine," Kenny said. "I can handle Cartman. Give me a little credit. Say goodbye to Stan for me."

"Send postcards," Kyle said. "Or a letter. I know it's old fashioned, but I remember getting your letter from Kauai, last time. I loved that letter."

"Really?" Kenny was surprised he remembered it.

"It was so--" Kyle started to say, and he frowned when a honking horn cut him off.

"I'd better go," Kenny said, grabbing his bag. "I'll write, I promise."

"Kenny," Kyle said, and he sighed. "You, um. You'll come home right away if Stan leaves me while you're gone, right?"

"You're out of your fucking mind. That won't happen." The horn was honking again; Cartman was really laying on it now. "I -- I'll call you when I get there. Stop feeling sorry for yourself over something that won't happen."

"Just go, then!" Kyle said as Kenny backed toward the door. "Jesus! Have a great time with those psychos."

Kenny withheld a comment about trading a neurotic psycho and a yoga-obsessed psycho for a lovesick psycho and a rogue one. He saluted Kyle and hurried out of the house, trudging through the unshoveled snow toward the car that was waiting. Cartman was leaning between the two front seats, crowding the driver while his fat palm hovered over the horn. He honked it one more time, giving Kenny an irritable look.

"I'm on the fucking meter here!" Cartman said when Kenny climbed into the backseat. "Jesus!"

"Sorry," Kenny said. "Is this Uber?"

"What the fuck do you think? Do you see puke on the seat and a cigarette in the guy's mouth? Of course it's Uber!"

"You're in a great mood."

"Shut up, Kenny."

Kenny's mood was actually quite good on the drive to the airport, and he smiled out the window, glad that Cartman had shown. He was optimistic about the situation in general, until they arrived and checked in at a self-service terminal.

"Um," Kenny said when Cartman pressed a boarding pass into his hand. "These are one-way tickets to Honolulu."

"No shit," Cartman said, huffing as he hoisted his laptop bag back onto his shoulder.

"Sooo. Isn't Butters in Kauai? And don't we need a return flight?"

"We don't know how long it will take to get him to come to his senses, dumb ass. So I couldn't book a return yet, and I have to do a little business on Oahu before we go to Kauai."

"Business?"

"Yeah, business, and I'll thank you to keep your nose out of it. C'mon, security's this way."

"I know where security is," Kenny said, though he had actually forgotten. "I have flown before."

"What, when you were ten years old? Though I guess you flew back here from California after your wife dumped you, eh?"

"Actually, I drove. Why do you look so smug? Your wife left you, too. That's why we're here."

"He's not a wife," Cartman said, glowering. "And he didn't leave me, not for real, not like yours did. This is just a mid-life crisis or something."

"Butters is only thirty-one."

"You can have them early!"

Security was not as Kenny remembered it: nobody took off their shoes, and he was the only one in line who pulled out his plastic baggie of travel-sized toiletries. Soon they were in the terminal, and the wait to board the plane passed quickly. Kenny was apprehensive about the fact that they were going to Honolulu for some mysterious business of Cartman's, but very pleased to see that each seat had its own personal TV.

"The movies are free?" he said after takeoff, when he'd selected a movie that wasn't even on Netflix yet. He'd been equally shocked to learn that the food cost money and that internet access was available for a fee.

"It's an eight-hour flight," Cartman said, looking at Kenny like he was crazy.

During the flight, Kenny watched four movies and liked all of them. He ordered a cheese and fruit plate and a little bottle of white wine. Cartman ordered a personal pizza and a beer, and he paid for everything. Kenny felt much less guilty being treated by him than he did when Stan forked his debit card over at restaurants.

"What's your game plan?" Kenny asked when the plane had begun its descent and his fourth movie had ended. "For getting Butters back," he said when Cartman looked at him with bleary confusion. He'd taken some kind of pill at the start of the flight and had slept through most of it, after eating.

"You're the game plan," Cartman said. "That's the whole fucking reason you're here. We went over this."

"Oh. So I sweet talk him for you, and that's it? You're not doing any sweet talking in stage two?"

"There are no stages, Kenny, okay? He's out of his mind, and once he sees you and me he'll recover."

Kenny studied Cartman, trying to figure out if he really believed this. One of the many reasons he'd always felt a little sorry for Cartman, despite everything, was that it had to be pretty exhausting to be the unreliable narrator of your own life.

 

**

As soon as they left the plane, Kenny noticed that the air felt different. It wasn’t exactly like his memories of Kauai's air, sweet and light, but it was both breezier and more dense than the air back home, and more comfortably warm than summers in South Park. They climbed into a taxi and Cartman gave the driver the name of a hotel. When they pulled up, Kenny was surprised that it wasn't one of the high rises on the beach. It was a two-story building on a quiet side street, with an open air lobby that looked into a courtyard with a pool. The elderly Asian woman at the front counter beamed at Cartman when he came trundling in.

"Mr. Cartman," she said. "Very glad to see you again!" She glanced at Kenny as if she expected to recognize him, too, and her smile faded a bit when she saw that she didn't. "Mr. Butter is not with you this time?"

"I'm meeting him in Kauai," Cartman said. He dropped his bags and squatted down to pet a calico cat that was dozing on a chair across from the check-in desk. "Is our room ready?"

"Yes, a second floor room, as you requested."

She went to get their key, and Kenny noticed that a small television on the check-in counter. A baseball game was just about to start, and a woman was singing the national anthem. Cartman stood with a grunt and elbowed him.

"We're going to watch this," he said, gesturing to the TV. "I've got money on this game."

"Okay," Kenny said. Falling asleep to the sound of a baseball game sounded nice after the long flight. "Who's playing?"

"Who's playing? What's wrong with you? It's the World Series. First time the Royals have made it since the eighties. I've got money on the Giants, of course. This is game three, it's tied at one and one. See?"

“Uh-huh,” Kenny said when Cartman stared at him. Apparently that question had not been rhetorical. 

“God,” Cartman said, and he grunted when he hoisted his bags again. “I hate you, Kenny.” 

“Huh? What did I do?”

Cartman didn’t answer, and Kenny was too tired to really care where that had come from. He followed Cartman up a flight of stairs across from the check-in desk, ready to rest and hopefully not talk for a while. The stairs were covered in old and slightly moldy carpeting, and Cartman unlocked one of the first doors along the hallway at the top, which was open to a view of flourishing banana trees and some run-down looking apartments next door. Kenny wasn't expecting the room to look as basic or dated as it did; Cartman seemed like he would have picked something flashier. He wasn't sure what to say when they passed through an entry-way kitchenette and he saw that there was only one bed in the room.

"All they had left was a king," Cartman said. He kept his back to Kenny as he flopped his bags onto the bed, and there was something defensive about it, as if Kenny had accused him of orchestrating this plot twist. "Since it was a last minute booking,” Carman said. He unzipped his duffel bag and rifled through it until he’d found a bottle of Advil that sounded like it had only two or three pills rattling in it. “This place is popular."

"It's cute," Kenny said, and it was true. The worn wallpaper and faded floral bedspread reminded him of his parents' house, and a Japanese-style screen opened to a porch that overlooked the pool and the chair in the lobby where the cat was still sleeping. The room's TV was as dated as the rest of the place, and most of the channels had static laced over them. Cartman turned up the volume when he found the baseball game.

"Should we call Butters?" Kenny asked, not sure where to sit with Cartman taking up most of the bed, between his body mass and half-unpacked bags. Beside the TV stand there was a small desk with an uncomfortable-looking bamboo chair.

"Call Butters?" Cartman said, frowning. "Why?"

"To tell him we're in Hawaii."

"Hell no, then he'll burrow even deeper into his Kauai hidey-hole. We have to surprise him."

"How are we going to find him? Just wander around aimlessly until he turns up?"

"I'll ask around. It's a small island, and people there like me."

"The lady downstairs knew you." Kenny sat on the bed and leaned back, carving out some room for himself. "You come to Oahu a lot?"

"Me and Butters usually stop on the way to Kauai. We go every year and stay with his stupid friends. Old, retired fucks, I hate 'em, but they give us free room and board. This time we're staying at my buddy's place. For the first four nights, anyway. He's got renters coming in on Halloween."

"Oh," Kenny said. He hadn't considered that he would be here for Halloween. Kyle had decorated the house and was still trying to decide on costumes for him and Stan to wear when they answered the door for trick or treaters. Kenny got up and headed out onto the room's little porch, twirling his cell phone in his hand. The battery was low and he was too tired to talk, but it seemed important to let Stan and Kyle know he had arrived.

"What's wrong?" Kyle asked when he answered. His voice sounded croaky; Kenny hoped he hadn't been crying."

"Nothing," Kenny said. "We're here. At this old-timey hotel. Cartman is watching baseball."

"Oh, Christ, I'm sure he's betting on it. He's got a problem. Stan is here," Kyle added hurriedly. "You're on speaker."

"Okay. Hi, Stan."

"Hey, dude. Is the weather good?"

"Yep, pretty good. I haven't found the beach yet. I guess I assumed we'd be staying right on it."

"I bet it's a real dump," Kyle said. "Anything he can afford. I heard he had some kind of crushing real estate loss recently."

"Who told you that?" Stan asked.

"My mom."

"Well," Kenny said, yawning. "I'm going to take a nap. Just wanted to let you guys know I landed safely. And, uh. We'll be here for Halloween, I think."

"What!" Kyle said. "That sucks!"

"When do you come back?" Stan asked.

"Uhh, I'm not sure. We had one-way tickets, since Butters is a loose cannon and everything."

"This is ominous," Kyle said. "At least tell me you're not sharing a hotel room."

"Well. Like you said, he's struggling, and you know I'm broke. Yeah, we are."

"Kenny! I don't like this. I feel like he's grooming you or something."

Stan snorted. "For what?" he asked. "Kyle, c'mon."

"It's weird. It's weird, Stan!"

"I gotta go," Kenny said. "I'll call you guys if anything -- happens."

"Do you at least have your own bed?" Kyle asked, and something about his tone seemed to indicate that he knew Kenny didn't.

"Bye, Kyle," Kenny said. "Everything's fine."

"Oh, my god. Right."

Kenny walked back into the hotel room. Cartman had reclined on the bed and kicked some of his stuff onto the floor. Kenny supposed it was a king bed, but it looked smaller than modern king beds he'd known, possibly just because Cartman took up so much space on it.

"I guess I'm going to go have a look at the beach," Kenny said. "Is it in walking distance?"

"Yeah," Cartman said, still staring at the TV, though the game had gone to commercials. "It's right down the street, just walk toward the big hotels. Bring me back a bottle of rum and something fruity to mix it with when you get back, alright?"

"Okay," Kenny said. He sighed. "Have you got cash?"

Cartman grumbled a little as he slipped Kenny two twenty dollar bills, as if Kenny had asked for money to buy his own booze. He was, admittedly, planning on consuming some of Cartman's.

It was a Friday afternoon just after lunch time, and the streets of Waikiki were bustling with tourists as Kenny got closer to the skyscraping hotels that lined the coast. He found a beach access walkway and followed a squat woman who ducked into an STAFF ONLY door on the side of a towering hotel just before he got his first glimpse of the ocean up ahead. He was smiling drowsily, feeling a little healed already by the sight of the Pacific. In California, the vineyard he ran with Glory had been only an hour from the coast, and he'd gone to the beach often. Glory didn't like sand and usually didn't join him, so he would sit there contemplating the purchase of a surfboard and remembering Butters on the beach when they were kids, the heat of his little hand and the way the fiery sunset seemed like a personal promise to both of them that things would be okay from then on.

Once he reached the sand, he took off his sneakers and socks and rolled up the cuffs on his jeans. He was already a little overly warm, though he'd changed into a t-shirt before leaving the hotel. The beach was packed with sunbathing tourists, and lots of them were bobbing in the waves as well. A pack of surfers was visible in the distance, where the waves were curling rather than breaking. Kenny had always loved the sight of surfers waiting on their boards, and the idea of devoting hours to just watching for a good wave, though he still had a chip on his shoulder about people who didn't have to work. He supposed it wasn't fair to assume that these were surf bums and not hard working hotel employees who were enjoying a day off or a lunch break, and thought of what Cartman had said about Butters' old, retired friends on Kauai. Kenny remembered their type somewhat from the last trip, and he hadn't liked them either. They were obnoxiously entitled in a way that he had noticed even as a ten-year-old.

A short walk down the shoreline and back again was all he had the energy for, and he tried to find the beach access path he'd come in on, ended up picking the wrong one and was soon in the middle of a bustling main street lined with luxury shops. The crowd wandering the sidewalk was largely a combination of stylish young Asian tourists and sunburned white people, and at one point a crusty-looking old man with two Macaws on his shoulder approached Kenny hopefully. The birds looked kind of rough, almost greasy, and Kenny couldn't imagine what the guy wanted from him; he averted his eyes and moved away, realizing as he fled the scene that the man probably loaned the birds to tourists for pictures and asked for tips. Kenny thought of Stan, who would be horrified by this on behalf of the work-worn birds.

He got a little lost on the way back to the hotel and almost forgot Cartman's liquor. There was an ABC store across from the hotel, and Kenny bought a small bottle of rum, some pomegranate soda and a bottle of water for himself. He threw away the receipt and drank the water before returning to the room.  


Inside, Cartman was asleep again, snoring on the bed while the baseball game continued at full volume. Kenny put the rum and soda on the counter in the kitchenette, thunking them there loudly in the hope that he would wake Cartman up. It didn't work, and Kenny moaned tiredly as he considered his options: Cartman was splayed across the bed, his arms outstretched to take up as much room as possible.

"Got your rum," Kenny said, but Cartman went on snoring. Kenny walked toward the bed, trying to figure out how he could get in bed and take a nap without brushing up against Cartman or getting kept awake by his snoring, and eventually he gave up and went down to the pool to fall asleep in a lounge chair.

He woke up slowly, and had the feeling of being gently coaxed from sleep that he associated with childhood, though not with his childhood, personally. The sun had started to set, and he could smell something frying at the little on-site Japanese restaurant behind the pool. A guy came out of the restaurant with a giant bucket and went to the ice machine to fill it. Kenny was still tired, creaky from sleeping in the chair and very hungry, but he felt good, and lingered at the pool until an old woman came down from the second floor of the hotel, walking a white cat on a leash. She gave Kenny a slightly unwelcoming look, and he headed back toward the room, hoping Cartman would be awake.

He was, and he had found the rum. Kenny mixed himself a glass of rum and pomegranate soda in the kitchenette, which was well-stocked with used-looking glassware and utensils. Cartman was muttering curses at the television. Kenny assumed his team was losing, and his bank account by extension.

"How much did you wager?" Kenny asked, walking over to sit beside Cartman on the bed. Cartman raised his lip in response to the question, then drank.

"These fucking clowns," Cartman said. "Fucking Lincecum, that dirty little hippie. This is his fault."

"I don't know him," Kenny said. He hadn't watched baseball in years, and Mark McGuire was the first name that came to mind when he tried to think of a modern player.

After the Giant lost the game, Cartman turned off the TV and made a motion like he was going to throw the remote. Kenny was relieved when he actually didn't, and he wondered what it had been like for Butters all those years, cringing and waiting to see if Cartman would ever made good on his threats to break things.

"I'm starving," Kenny said, hoping to cheer him up with food. "You want to get dinner?"

"Yeah," Cartman said. "I know a place. They have good mai tais. Fuck, I need a drink," he said, and he finished the one he was holding.

They walked toward the big hotels as the sun disappeared, tiki torches lit around the boundaries of the hotels' motor lobbies and out in front of restaurants. The hotel that Kenny followed Cartman into was swank but understated, and they passed a garden courtyard and a mostly empty infinity pool on the way to a restaurant that was open to a view of the ocean. There was a giant tree in the back of the seating area, and three men were playing Hawaiian music on guitar beneath the tree's largest branch.

"Cool place," Kenny said after they were seated at a table with a not so good view of the musicians. Kenny sipped from his water, realizing only then that he didn't have a lot to talk about with Cartman, aside from the mission to recover Butters, which Cartman apparently didn't want to plan out or discuss in detail. "Whoa," Kenny said when he opened the menu. "Kinda pricey."

"It's Waikiki," Cartman snapped. He seemed drowsy, and Kenny wished they had just gotten McDonalds or something. The restaurant was pretty romantic, with lots of middle-aged couples sitting together and facing the fading sunset, bottles of wine chilling in silver table-side coolers.

"Two mai tais," Cartman said when the waiter appeared. "And some coconut shrimp."

"Sorry your team lost," Kenny said when the waiter had shuffled away and the vacation-y, well-heeled atmosphere had begun to make him uncomfortable. He wondered if people would assume that he and Cartman were a couple. Cartman groaned and rubbed his hands over his face.

"It's only game three," he said. "They'll still win the Series. They'd better fucking win it," he mumbled, staring into space.

The tension continued for the remainder of the meal, though Kenny wasn't sure Cartman was cognizant enough to notice it. Kenny reminded himself that soon he would be with hanging out with Butters, unless Butters turned on him for enabling Cartman's romantic pursuit. Having an expensive meal essentially alone, to the tune of floaty island music and while Cartman stuffed his face in silence, was making Kenny feel lonelier than he had when he had a constant view of Stan and Kyle snuggling. He drank two mai tais but couldn't manage to get drunk.

"How's your mom doing?" Kenny asked when they were waiting for the check, desperate for some kind of conversation. Cartman shrugged.

"She has an Etsy business," he said.

"Oh yeah? What does she make?"

"She buys plus size clothes from thrift stores and remakes them into shit that skinny bitches like her can wear."

"Hmm," Kenny said. "Does she need help? My mom used to be a seamstress."

Cartman scoffed, then gave Kenny a look that was slightly apologetic.

"Yeah, I don't know," he said, very loudly, for some reason. "I wouldn't go into business with my mother if I were you. She's got emotional problems."

"Oh?" Kenny leaned forward, entertained now. Cartman must have finally gotten drunk. "What do you mean?"

"She's clingy. She drove my father away, you know, he would have left his ugly wife for her back in the day, but she can't give people their fucking space. Butters puts up with it, but not me. I can't be over at that bitch's house every other night for dinner."

"Does Butters object when you call your mom a bitch?" Kenny asked. Cartman's attention seemed to refocus on him then, and he frowned.

"Don't worry about what me and Butters do," he said. "That's not your job."

"But I might be more useful to you if I knew a little, like, background about your life with Butters."

"What's there to know? I blew him in eighth grade and he's been mine ever since. You know how to get a guy to commit to you forever? Give him his first blow job. Works every time." Cartman hiccuped. "'Course, I don't know if it works on chicks. Oral, or whatever. Why'd your wife leave you, anyway?"

"You're changing the subject," Kenny said.

"So what? I just bought you a fucking forty dollar dinner, I'll ask whatever the hell I want. Did you cheat on her?"

"No. We had, um. She wanted to control the business we started together, and it made sense, because she had invested all the money. But it was her family's money, so. It wasn't like she'd earned it and like that meant she knew how to run things better than me. You see where this is going?"

"Sure, sure. You were insecure because you're poor and she was rich. Makes sense to me."

"It wasn't actually that simple."

"Uh-huh. And then you cheated on her with one of the grape pickers, didn't you?"

"I did not cheat." Kenny had, however, committed what he considered to be emotional infidelity by developing a pointless but intense crush on Glory's straight younger brother toward the end, when they'd really begun to hate each other. "It was. We grew apart."

"What a bullshit excuse!" Cartman said, suddenly bellowing. A few people at neighboring tables turned. "That's crap, that's what that is. People don't grow apart unless they want to. There were other problems, real ones. You can't just say 'we got older, that's why.' What a load of horse shit!"

"Calm down," Kenny said, leaning over the table. "You're making a scene."

"I'll make a goddamn scene if I want, this place is overpriced." Cartman belched, which seemed to settle him down somewhat. Kenny was very grateful to the waiter for hurrying their check to the table after that outburst.

The walk back to the hotel seemed shorter than Kenny remembered. Cartman was in a bad mood and was nearly asleep on his feet by the time Kenny ushered him up the stairs toward their room. Kenny thought of Butters dealing with this for years: drunken outbursts in public, irrational anger over an innocent turn of phrase, and transparent insecurity that inspired a kind of pity that Kenny didn't want to deal with now, just before climbing into a bed with Cartman.

Cartman took off his shirt and pants and got into bed in his boxer shorts, his heft flopping around in a disorderly way before he yanked the floral cover up to hide it. Kenny left his t-shirt on and removed his jeans, too weary to really care about how weird this was, or how loudly Kyle would object if he were here. He got into the bed and was relieved to find that there was a foot of space between his back and Cartman's, and he was quickly asleep.

Five minutes later, he awoke in a panic to a cacophony of explosions.

"Is that thunder?" he asked, his heart pounding. Cartman was motionless and seemed unsurprised.

"Fireworks," he said.

Kenny put his head on the pillow again, his heart still thudding wildly. There was something funny about this, but he was too tired and disoriented to put his finger on what it was. The fireworks continued to go off, cheerful and ceaseless. They sounded like they were directly overhead. Kenny thought about getting up to peer over the balcony and see if he could spot them, but he was too tired to move and ended up falling asleep on his back.

It was still dark when he woke up, only five o'clock in the morning. Cartman was breathing through his mouth but not snoring, fast asleep. He'd rolled over during the night, and Kenny thought maybe he'd moved closer in the process. It was surreal to turn his cheek and see Cartman's face resting on the pillow beside his. Cartman looked younger when he slept, the wrinkles that were forming around his eyes smoothed out. Kenny recalled something he'd once heard Butters say about Cartman having nice eyelashes, and he wondered how that eighth grade blow job went down exactly. Had they been making out first, or for weeks already? Had Cartman blushed, or had he laughed when he tugged Butters' pants down without warning and looked up to see him blushing? Kenny knew he wouldn't get answers to these questions from Cartman, and he intended to try asking Butters once they were in Kauai, if they were actually going there. Something about the whole trip seemed off, like Kenny had found himself in a wonderfully lucid dream only to lose his grip on his consciousness and soar off into territory that was out of his control.

He got up and tried to shower, but the water was ice cold and wasn't warming up after five minutes. He put a bathing suit on instead, grabbed one of the towels from the bathroom, and headed out to go to the beach again. Whatever was happening here, he'd rather sit alone and watch the sunrise than lie next to Cartman and wonder about blow jobs of yore.

He was surprised to find the streets empty, though it couldn't be more than ten minutes before the sun would rise. Tiki torches outside of the hotels were still lit, and amid the lush but quiet atmosphere Kenny felt as if he was wandering through an amusement park after operating hours. A rooster was crowing somewhere nearby, and between the massive hotels there were little gravel lots full of food trucks that had been locked up for the night.

The access path he took to the beach this time was a different one, directly parallel to the road their hotel was on. He came out on an empty section of beach and saw light already peeking over Diamond Head in the distance. There were a few tourists with cell phones standing fifty feet or so behind him, and in the restaurant on the ground floor of the nearest hotel, employees were prepping for the breakfast buffet. Kenny sat down in the sand and wished for Butters, as if the rising sun was just another star to be wished on. A guy with a surfboard showed up and spent a few minutes stretching before walking past Kenny, toward the water. He was either a teenager or Kenny's age; it was hard to say in the pre-dawn light.

“Here for the sunrise?” the surfer said, smiling. He didn't seem to be teasing or judging Kenny as a sappy tourist who was in the way of his morning routine. Kenny smiled back and nodded, not really in the mood to talk to strangers. “It'll be a good one,” the guy said, and he jogged toward the water. 

Kenny waited almost an hour after sunrise before heading wading into the ocean, taking his cue from other tourists who had hit the beach early. It was calm in the bay, but he was wary of hidden riptides, afraid that if he died this week he would miss some seminal event in the chewed-up timeline of his life, a kind of last chance. The water felt good, and Kenny swam aimlessly, keeping his distance from the other swimmers. He supposed it probably looked strange, a man his age on his own in Hawaii, but he didn't care too much, and nobody stared. He did flips underwater and stared up at the clear sky while he floated on his back, allowing himself to revel. It was a beautiful day, and this place looked more like paradise than the officially sanctioned Heaven ever had, to him.

He was worn out around ten o'clock in the morning, dozing and sandy, his stomach empty. This time he was careful not to walk back to the motel along the main drag, instead finding the peaceful side street that led directly there. He was surprised when he reentered the room and found Cartman gone, and glad for the privacy. When he tried the shower again, the hot water was working.

Cartman didn't return until almost four o'clock in the afternoon. Kenny had been flitting between the pool, the balcony that overlooked it, and the bed. He had treated himself to a pre-wrapped Starbucks sandwich for lunch, and had consumed that along with a two dollar bottle of Hawaiian Springs water, which was billed as 'Young Natural Artesian Water' on the label. Kenny thought it tasted that way, but he'd always been easily impressed by anything that was marketed as somewhat luxurious.

"How was your day?" Kenny asked when Cartman emerged from the bathroom. He'd shut himself in there without a word upon arriving, and had remained there for almost twenty minutes.

"Everything's fine," Cartman said, but he seemed angry, banging around the kitchenette as he made himself a drink. "Fuck," he said. "We're almost out of juice."

"The ABC's right across the street."

Cartman didn't answer. He mixed what looked like a very strong rum drink with the remains of the pomegranate soda, and Kenny decided not to ask about Butters, or about how his business in town had gone.

"Put the game on," Cartman said. Kenny had no idea what channel was showing the World Series, but it didn't matter: the TV was still on the same channel Cartman had watched the game on yesterday, and the picture that slowly came into focus on the old set was one of a green baseball diamond, a pitcher going into his windup. Kenny moved over when Cartman sat on the bed. He thought about making himself a drink, and held off until the Royals scored and Cartman started cursing under his breath.

"When are we leaving for Kauai?" Kenny asked when he returned with a glass half-full of rum on ice.

"Tomorrow," Cartman said, keeping his eyes on the TV. "I'm fucking done with this town."

"Okay." Kenny returned to the bed and sat carefully, as if Cartman was a large bundle of fragile and highly explosive material. "Good. I went to the beach today. It was nice, kind of crowded."

"It's Waikiki. Crowds fucking everywhere. Asian tourists. They infest places like this, it's inevitable. The Japanese are bad enough with their twee little hats, but just wait until the new money Chinese get here. They spit, did you know that? Like camels. Anyway, you'll like Kauai. It's much quieter."

"I know," Kenny said. "I've been there."

"Oh, yeah," Cartman said, muttering this into his glass before gulping down the last of drink.

This made Kenny uneasy. He had been willing to buy the Cartman-logic of coming along to provide expertise on retrieving an unstable Butters from Kauai; it was the kind of desperate, scrambling scheme Cartman came up with all the time. But apparently Cartman wasn't keeping this plan of action firmly in mind, at least in terms of remembering that he'd brought Kenny along allegedly because he'd done this before, and Kenny was left wondering what Cartman was actually plotting. A nakedly foolish scheme could occasionally conceal a darker and much more diabolical one, where Cartman was concerned.

The Giants ended up winning the game, and some combination of this and the rum put Cartman in a good mood. He announced that he was going to a restaurant that had world famous pineapple martinis, then stood from the bed and stared at Kenny like he expected him to tag along. Kenny didn't mind; he was hungry, and he liked pineapple.

The sun was going down as they made their way to a restaurant not far from the hotel bar where they'd dined the night before. This one had no view of the water or the sunset, and they were seated at an outdoor table, the street that ran alongside the restaurant obscured by a hedge and the stems of strategically placed tiki torches. When the waiter brought their pineapple martinis, Kenny plucked the fat, heavy wedge of pineapple from the rim and sucked it into his mouth.

"Be careful," the waiter said. "Those are more dangerous than they look." He winked.

"Bring us the lobster wontons," Cartman said, and he waved the waiter away. Kenny smirked and drank from his martini. It was okay, a little sweet for his taste.

"Was that guy flirting with me?" Kenny asked.

"I don't know," Cartman said. "Do waiters hit on you often? They sense you're one of them?"

"How am I one of them?" Kenny asked, though he could guess.

"The help."

"Ah. Fuck you. I was the co-owner of a successful artisanal winery."

"Please! You were shacked up with a rich bitch who bought herself a vineyard. I'm getting the short rib." Cartman tossed his menu onto the table, nearly upsetting his martini, which he then half-finished in two tremendous gulps. "This is a chain restaurant," he said. "But the one in Vegas doesn't make this martini as good. Only in Hawaii. Only on Oahu, actually. They have this restaurant on Kauai, too, but it fuckin' sucks there."

"Are you still in Vegas often?" Kenny asked, hoping they could keep things civil tonight. He was very relieved that Cartman's team had won, and then annoyed with himself for that, as if he had become the captive partner to Cartman's moods, replacing now-liberated Butters.

"First of all," Cartman said, smacking his martini down. "Fuck Vegas. That town's for amateurs. And the bums on the streets are unreal. I used to go there for business, it used to be a scene, but nah. The internet has replaced Vegas, largely."

"What, for gambling?"

"No, for wind surfing. Of fucking course for gambling, Jesus! Has anyone ever told you that you're phenomenally bad at conversation?"

"Then why'd you invite me along?" Kenny was burned by that, but only because, yes. His ex-wife had told him that once. Kyle had, too, in high school, when they were fighting about something. "Would it be preferable to sit here by yourself and mope?" Kenny asked, deciding that he would only survive the pre-Butters portion of this trip if he dealt as many low blows as Cartman did. "You'd rather silently mourn your relationship, alone with your martinis? You want me to go back to the hotel? I'll take my food to go if you want, but you did promise meals as part of this fucked-up safari."

"Safari." Cartman scoffed and drank. "Have you ever had sex with a prostitute?"

"Um, no?"

Kenny wasn't sure why that came out sounding as if he wasn't certain if he had or not, maybe because he had once felt like a prostitute himself, when he was living with a girl in college who he wasn't attracted to or in love with. She wasn't charging him rent, and he was dirt broke after sending money home to untangle the latest crisis there. They had sex almost every night for two months, and Kenny didn't dislike it, but he also didn't look forward to it, and ultimately everything between them ended very badly.

"I bet it fuckin' sucks," Cartman mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Sex with a hooker. I bet it majorly blows."

"Well. They do it for a living, so. Maybe not? But yeah, I wouldn't feel good about, like. Making someone do that in exchange for money. If they needed the money, I'd just give it to them, no sex required."

Cartman snorted. "You don't have any money."

"I meant in theory, asshole."

"Well, that's why you're poor, Kenny, and why you always will be. You're gonna walk around handing out money to all the prostitutes of the world, for nothing?"

"What is this conversation even about?" Kenny asked, glaring at him.

"The economy," Cartman said. "Supply and demand."

"And the quality of sex with hookers."

"That's -- I was just, like, wondering. Since you seem like the kind of guy who has maybe paid for sex."

"Why do I seem like that kind of guy? I'm objectively better looking than you, and, as you constantly remind me, I've always been low on cash. And yet you think I'm going around buying sex? What the hell, man?"

"Shut up, Kenny."

Kenny ordered a mahi entree, and he regretted it when Cartman's short rib arrived and smelled delicious. He didn't dare ask for a bite, and ate his fish slowly enough to justify ordering a second martini on Cartman's dime. He had a high tolerance, and he assumed that Cartman did, too, but by the time they were working on their second drinks they were both getting a little dopey, suddenly talking like actual friends.

"So you're living with Stan and Kyle," Cartman said. He scoffed, or maybe burped. "How fucking miserable is that?"

"It's not as bad as you'd think. They, uh. They're decent cooks. Stan makes me do yoga."

"Oh, Jesus. Brutal!"

"It's-- it's okay. Sometimes it's relaxing. There's this one move where you rock on the floor like a toddler? I like that one. And forward folds."

"Ha! Of course you’d like bending over."

"Are you implying something sexual?" Kenny asked. He could hear himself slurring. "Because I am not a bottom. Do I look like I forward fold during sex? I'm six foot four, asshole."

This made Cartman giggle idiotically, which would have been repulsive under normal circumstances. At the moment, Kenny found it hilarious bordering on endearing, and he laughed, too.

"Like tall people can't bottom," Cartman said. He was over six feet himself, though his girth made him seem large rather than tall. Kenny raised his eyebrows and tried to picture Butters, who was five and a half feet tall and maybe a hundred and sixty pounds, topping Cartman. He supposed stranger things had happened.

"Anyway," Kenny said, growing uncomfortable with the way Cartman was looking at him. "The worst part is that Stan and Kyle fuck every night, and they're really loud."

"God." Cartman sat back in his chair and drained his martini. He seemed glum after doing so, and Kenny waited for some kind of derogatory remark about Stan and Kyle and their active sex life, then realized it wasn't really something to deride, at their age.

"So, tomorrow," Kenny said. "How long is the flight to Kauai from here?"

"It's short. Half an hour, maybe a little more. I booked us a Jeep."

"Okay. Good."

"We'll find him," Cartman said, sneering down at his martini. "He can't hide from me forever."

"I'm not going to help you kidnap him, Cartman."

"I just need a few days." For a moment it seemed like Cartman was going to cry. Kenny wasn't surprised; he'd always been a weepy drunk in high school. Cartman drained his drink and shrugged. "It'll all be over soon," he said, muttering.

"That's ominous."

"You have no idea. Where's the fucking check?"

The walk back to the hotel seemed to pass in a blink, probably because Kenny was enjoying himself, and appreciating the fragrant lightness of the after-dark air in Waikiki. They stopped into the ABC for more pomegranate soda, and they finished off the bottle of rum while watching a dumb movie on TV. Kenny dozed off and woke when he had to pee. Cartman was blinking slowly, slumped down low against the pillows, his fat chin tucked to his chest.

On his way back from the bathroom, Kenny pulled off his jeans, ready to sleep. Cartman was watching him from under heavy eyelids.

"What?" Kenny said, resisting the urge to adjust his dick inside his boxers.

"Nothing," Cartman said. "Are you really six foot four?"

"Yeah. Well, almost. I round up from six foot three and a half, I guess."

"What are you doing?" Cartman asked when Kenny went on standing near the end of the bed, suddenly not sure what was happening.

"I'm not doing anything. Move over."

Kenny climbed into the bed and rolled away from Cartman, waiting for fireworks to explode overhead and scare the shit out of him again. They didn't, or he slept so deeply that he missed them.

 

**

Kenny woke up hungover at five in the morning, his head feeling as if it was both drained of all matter and pressed between two pulsing brick walls that were just shy of crushing his skull every time they pulsed inward. He drank the remains of his Artesian Hawaiian water, aware that it would not do anything for his pain. He’d feel like a husk of himself for at least half the day. 

While Cartman was still asleep, Kenny went across the street only to find that the ABC didn't open for an hour. He moseyed around for a while, miserable and feeling as if he was walking through some kind of pristine video game environment. On the way to Starbucks, which he hoped would open at five thirty, he passed a skinny rooster that was picking around in a hotel's landscaped greenery. He tried to take a picture, maybe to send to Stan and Kyle, but it bolted away when he stepped closer to it.

Starbucks was open, and Kenny was worried about his bank account as he paid for another water and a piece of banana bread. He realized it was already afternoon in Colorado and decided to call Stan and Kyle on the walk back. He was glad that they had a land line, which had come free with their media bundle, because otherwise he would have had to pick which cell phone to call, and that would be harder than picking between his actual parents, which was actually a fairly simple matter, considering who his father was.

"Are you okay?" Stan asked when he answered. "Kyle's at work," he said before Kenny could respond.

"I'm fine. We're leaving Oahu today, heading toward Butters. Toward Kauai, I mean. Well, both. Cartman is in a weird place."

"Like, for Cartman, or for a normal person?"

"I'm not even sure how to answer that question. How are you guys?"

"Kyle seems mad at me. But we're fine. What have you been doing?"

"Sitting around, mostly. Watching baseball. Went to the beach yesterday."

"Well, I'm jealous. Except that you're with Cartman."

"He's pretty annoying. He has been been paying for my meals, though, so. There's that." Kenny felt gross, saying this. Stan was quiet for a while.

"Once you find Butters," Stan said. "Things will pick up."

Kenny tried to believe that as he walked back into the motel room, where Cartman was still sleeping. He opened the blinds, worried about missing their flight. Like most details of this trip, Cartman hadn't shared their departure time with him. He flopped onto the bed, unbalancing the mattress in a way that he hoped would wake Cartman. It didn't work, and Cartman didn't respond when Kenny started poking his shoulder an hour later. He was breathing in great wheezing gulps, his lips actually sort of flapping when he exhaled.

"How did Butters ever sleep?" Kenny asked, because he'd awakened to this yesterday, too. Cartman snorted and jerked, rousing at the sound of Butters' name. He turned and gave Kenny an angry glare, as if to reproach him for invoking that name, or maybe for not being Butters.

"Fuck," Cartman said. "Get me some Advil."

"I'll have to go to the ABC. Give me cash."

"No, just go down to the front desk. Tell them Cartman-san needs painkillers. She might even give you some good stuff."

The old lady who apparently had given Cartman 'some good stuff' in the past was not working the desk when Kenny went downstairs. Instead, he was greeted with open annoyance by an old white man who apparently worked the night and early morning shift. He gave Kenny two off-brand Ibuprofen, and Kenny considered telling Cartman the unmarked pills were something much stronger, just to see him have a psychosomatic reaction. He decided against it, and Cartman moaned in a whimpery protest when Kenny gave him the pills.

"What the hell did I do last night?" Cartman asked while Kenny repacked his bag.

"Pineapple martinis," Kenny said.

"I feel like I said something weird at dinner." Cartman had his fat palm pressed to his forehead, his eyes pinched shut. "Did I?"

"Mhmm, not really. What time is our flight?"

"Noon."

"You'd better pack," Kenny said. He was surprised when Cartman hefted himself off the bed and obeyed.

They took a taxi to the airport, both still miserably ill and staring out the windows of their cab in silence. The cab driver was an older man who tried to make small talk a few times.

"Kauai is beautiful," he said when Kenny told him where they were flying to. "It's boring, though," he said.

Kenny doubted that would be true during this trip, and he almost took offense on behalf of his last life-changing experience there. He expected Cartman to angrily bark a rebuttal, but it seemed like he hadn't heard this observation at all. He had an air of cowed regret about him that Kenny didn't like, but he supposed it was just anxiety about the potential recollection of Butters.

The Honolulu airport wasn't crowded when they arrived, and they didn't have to wait long before boarding. Kenny was growing nervous while the plane filled up with other passengers, his foot bouncing and his headache finally beginning to recede. Cartman peered out the window and seemed to want to pretend he was traveling alone, though a significant portion of him was spilling into Kenny's territory. The plane was small, cramped. After takeoff they were offered guava juice in little plastic cups with peel-back foil tops. Cartman asked for two. By the time Kenny had finished his juice, they were already descending toward Kauai. He felt calmer as the plane dipped and the cabin pressure changed, thinking of how the air had smelled on Kauai, which was not unlike the tops of the mountains at home in late spring, when the last stage of the wildflower bloom scented the air with a darker, slightly fermented sweetness. There was something about the air in Kauai that was less bittersweet, perhaps because it wasn't seasonal.

As soon as they got off the plane and walked out into the little airport with its open corridors, Kenny realized what it was: this place smelled like a promise that everything would be okay. This made him smile when he thought that Butters probably smelled like that, too, up-close and intimate, in the sweet spot between his neck and shoulder. He only felt slightly guilty at the thought that Cartman had behaved badly enough to have that promise revoked. After a lifetime without it, Kenny was willing to be a little ruthless in his attempts to secure it for himself.

"Where's our condo?" Kenny asked when they were riding the shuttle from the airport to the car rental pickup. "North or South?" Last time he'd stayed South, in a Sheraton timeshare community.

"The condo's in Princeville," Cartman said. "Up north, by the golf course."

"You gonna play?"

"What? Golf?" Cartman looked over at Kenny, frowning. His face was still splotchy, and he was clutching his travel bag to his chest like he was afraid someone would steal it. Kenny was the only other person on the shuttle, aside from the driver. "I don't play golf," Cartman said. "It's for yuppies."

"I guess I thought you aspired to be one of those."

"No-- what? Shut up, I'm thinking."

At the rental place, Kenny hung back while Cartman dealt with the sales rep. There were several roosters in the parking lot, and these ones weren't as skittish. Kenny sent a couple of pictures he took of them to Kyle and Stan, and decided that he would prefer to text them pictures, like dropping breadcrumbs to mark the way back home, as opposed to more awkward phone calls. They were both fairly awful on the phone, and Kenny was no better.

The Jeep they rented was white with a gray soft top, and Cartman insisted on driving. Kenny was fine with this until they took off down the highway and he remembered the last time he'd been in a car with Cartman behind the wheel. Cartman drove fast and aggressively, which didn't fit the pace of the lush countryside and its single highway. Having grown up with Stuart McCormick as his frequent chauffeur, Kenny was accustomed to buckling down and hoping for the best. He watched the tall grass along the roadside for roosters, and was delighted to find that they were still pretty much everywhere.

"My buddy's place is pretty sweet," Cartman said. "Butters will be down south with those dicks he calls his friends, but it's better this way. Working from opposite ends of the island. We don't want to spook him straight off, right?"

"Right." Kenny stared at Cartman, wondering if it would be dangerous to broach the subject of his master plan for retrieving Butters while he was behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. "Um, so. We'll kind of settle in and then try to get in touch with Butters tomorrow?"

"No, no. We'll call him tonight. Well, you will. And don't tell him I'm here, not yet. Tell him you want to meet up with him. Tell him I sent you, that I'm worried about him."

"Why can't I tell him you're here? Are you going to hide the entire time?"

"Of course not, dumb ass, but you have to do these things gradually! Look, you're basically my employee while you're here, so just do as I say and don't question my authority, got it?"

"Got it," Kenny said, though he didn't plan to actually respect Cartman's employee policy. The less Cartman knew about Kenny's ulterior motives the better, for now. In that sense, Kenny could see why Cartman would want to keep Butters in the dark about his presence on the island, but Kenny planned to tell Butters exactly what was going on as soon as they met up. He was pleasantly surprised that Cartman trusted him enough to do the initial Butters consultation on his own.

The drive to the condo took just a little over half an hour, and Kenny was very relieved to get out of the car. Already he was infused with a kind of peacefulness that he hadn't felt on Oahu, and he smiled to himself when he thought about Butters on the south shore, less than an hour away.

"This way," Cartman said. He led Kenny, who carried all the bags, through a densely landscaped pathway that wound past two-story condos with large lanais. They arrived at the door of a ground floor unit with a bubbling water feature in its small front courtyard. Cartman entered a code on the door panel, and Kenny followed him into the dark front hall. The place was more tastefully decorated than Kenny had expected, with polished stone floors and a kitchen that opened into a sunken sitting room. There was no wicker, no sea shell lamps, or any of the other resort-style motifs he had noticed when he was in Kauai as a kid. Kenny set the bags down and wandered in to take a closer look. There was a rather conspicuous Buddha statue in the sitting room, and a large brass hookah near the fireplace, which had a votive candle holder where the logs might be.

"Wow," Kenny said. He turned and saw Cartman standing in the hallway between the bedrooms and the main living area, his shoulders slumped as if he was the one who had carried heavy bags here. "This is really nice."

"I know," Cartman said. He ran his hand over his face. "Alright, call Butters. Let's get it over with. Use your phone-- do you have his number?"

Kenny did not. He entered it into his phone as Cartman read off the digits, then walked out onto the back lanai to make the call. Cartman followed him, predictably. The semi-private lanai featured a covered jacuzzi beside two old bicycles and a pile of miscellaneous beach things: folding chairs, foam pool noodles, a couple of boogie boards. A hen with seven peeping chicks was grazing nearby, keeping her eye on the chicks while they pecked at the foliage.

"Well?" Cartman said. "What are you waiting for?"

Kenny wasn’t sure how to answer. He wished he had a not-insane plan of his own, but his aim to seduce Butters on Kauai after all this time was probably just as ludicrous as Cartman's idea that he could win him back by stalking him.

"What do I say?" he asked, hating that he was appealing to Cartman as the expert on Butters.

"Say you want to meet up! Tomorrow, and don't mention me. We went over this, Kenny!"

"We did?" They had talked about it in the Jeep, but that had seemed more like a vague sketch rather than an actual plan. "Alright," he said, pulling up Butters' number. "He might not pick up."

"He always picks up. Unless it's me, lately."

After three rings, Kenny was convinced that Cartman was wrong, and for a moment he was afraid that Butters wasn't here at all, that Cartman had lured him here for some other reason and that he would never see Kyle and Stan again. Then Butters answered.

"Kenny?" he said, as chirpy as ever. "Is this really you?"

"You have my number in your phone?" Kenny said, surprised. Hearing this, Cartman narrowed his eyes.

"Well, sure I do! I think I must have got it from Kyle a few years ago, when I was trying to invite you to some thing or another."

"Oh. Did I end up going?"

"Hmm, I don't think so. I think you were still in California. How the heck are you, anyway?"

"I'm doing good." Kenny glanced at Cartman, who was still glowering, as if Kenny wasn't doing exactly as he'd asked. "How, um. How are you?"

"Well, I suppose I'm okay. I guess you might have heard by now that I'm spending some time in my native land."

"I did hear that, um. Hey, funny thing is, I'm here, too."

"You're where?" Butters asked this so sweetly, and Kenny felt horrible all over again for conspiring with Cartman.

"In Kauai!" Kenny said, trying to sound as bright and enthusiastic about this as he'd felt before this phone call. "On the north shore, um. I heard you were here, from-- from Stan and Kyle, and I thought, hey. I'm out of work at the moment, and I deserve a break, plus it sounds like Butters could use a friend, so here I am. Uh, I guess that's weird."

"Golly," Butters said. Kenny could clearly picture the consternation on his face, halfway to understanding something that he was too innocent to really grasp. "How'd Stan and Kyle know I was here, anyway?" Butters asked. "I haven't talked to those fellas in months."

"Cartman told them," Kenny blurted. He glanced at Cartman after saying so, not sure how to interpret his warning look. "He said he was worried about you, and they mentioned it to me, and I thought, well. Last time you needed a friend, on Kauai, I was able to help, so. I hope I haven't been too presumptuous."

"Geez, no!" Butters said. He sounded genuinely happy, but that was often true, and Kenny couldn't credit himself yet. "That's amazing, Kenny! You're really here?"

"I really am, up north."

"Where are you staying?"

"Um." Kenny pointed toward the condo, hoping Cartman would understand that he needed an explanation for his accommodations. Cartman gave Kenny an incredulous look and threw up his hands. "Just at a condo I found. I got a good rate."

"Oh, sure, it's the offseason. Lots of good deals! I'm staying with my friends Bill and Donna down here, you remember them?"

"Sorta." All the 'natives' at the Sheraton Residences had blended together into one pompous old white person in Kenny's memory.

"You ought to come down and have dinner with us!" Butters said. "Or better yet, I could come up there and visit you at your place. I haven't made it all the way up north since I got here. When'd you get in, just now?"

"That's right, just about an hour ago."

"Oh, well, you're probably real tired. Say, how's this-- meet me tomorrow at Ke'e Beach, at the end of the road to the north. It's real nice in the early mornings. Are you still an early riser?"

"I still am," Kenny said, turning away from Cartman to hide his smile. It was one thing he and Butters had in common as kids: on weekends and in the summer, when Kyle, Stan and Cartman slept late, Kenny and Butters would turn up early on the playground or at Stark's Pond, having been up since dawn. Butters wasn't allowed to leave the house until he'd done all his chores for the day, which meant he had to get up around five in the morning and get started unless he wanted to miss prime playtime with the others. Kenny mowed lawns all over town, and he tried to get the day's jobs done before the heat kicked up. It was always nice to be alone together on those mornings, without the noise of Kyle and Cartman's bickering or Stan's complaining about Wendy's letters from summer camp and their glowing mentions of other, cooler boys.

"How's seven thirty?" Butters asked. "Too early? It's just that the parking is real limited, even at this time of year."

"Seven thirty is perfect, dude. I still haven't adjusted to the time change, so I'll probably wake up at four in the morning, anyway."

"Oh, Kenny." Butters was smiling; Kenny could hear it. "Isn't this just the darnedest thing? We're on Kauai together again! That makes me happy."

"Me, too," Kenny said, beaming now. He still had his back to Cartman, who was radiating jealous fumes like a bonfire of oily rags. "Alright, tomorrow morning. Can't wait to see you and catch up."

"Yeah! Okay, mister, get some rest. I'll see you up there tomorrow, bright and early."

After hanging up, Kenny had to compose himself before turning to face Cartman. He forced the smile off his face, but there was nothing he could do about the heat on his cheeks. He supposed he could write it off as sunburn, and it was shadowy enough on the covered lanai that Cartman might not notice. Cartman was pacing and nodding to himself, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Good, good," he said. "Go early, talk to him about why I'm here. Then I'm going to take him out for dinner at the best restaurant on the island. I have a reservation."

"I hope it's for three," Kenny said.

"Why the fuck would it be?"

"Because I'm doing all the work? It's not going to be easy to keep Butters from getting mad at me, first of all, when I show up and tell him that I left off the part about you being here, too." He doubted this would actually prove true, but it was best if Cartman thought he would be mounting a Herculean effort on his behalf. "Then it's going to be even harder to get him to agree to meet you for dinner, fancy restaurant or not. I think he'd feel more comfortable, at the start, if we went as a group, the three of us."

"Oh, so now you're an expert on Butters? Just because you had one two minute-long conversation with him?"

"No, but I do have some experience with a pissed off spouse, and I've learned from my own mistakes. Trust me, Eric. This is the way to go. Change your reservation to three people, and I'll get him there. I promise."

Cartman huffed and went into the house. Kenny stuffed his phone into his pocket and lifted up the cover on the hot tub, grinning to himself when he saw steam lift from the softly circulating water. He went into the house, planning to throw on his bathing suit and spend an hour sitting in that hot water and thinking about having Butters and a pristine beach all to himself in the morning.

"Which bedroom is mine?" Kenny asked, hoisting his bag. Cartman pointed to the smaller room, which was closer to the front foyer.

"That's an authentic opium bed from the 1800's," Cartman said when Kenny walked in and flipped on the light. Cartman occupied the entire doorway, apparently not planning on giving Kenny any privacy.

"Cool," Kenny said, testing the mattress on the bed with his hand. It was very firm, but he could sleep on anything and the bed itself was pretty awesome, sprawling to occupy most of the room and framed on all sides with carved wood. "I guess your friend who owns this place is an, uh, opium enthusiast?"

"He's got class," Cartman barked. "Anyway, how did he sound?"

"Butters?"

"Yes, Butters! Was he, like. Happy? You think?"

"Yeah, actually, but you know Butters. He always puts on a cheerful front. Listen, I'm gonna sit in the jacuzzi. You mind giving me some privacy while I change?"

"Whatever," Cartman muttered, and Kenny shut the door once he'd sauntered off.

Kenny hoped Cartman wouldn't join him in the jacuzzi, and he slipped out quietly once he'd put on his suit. The hen and her chicks had made their way to the other side of the yard, and he could hear roosters crowing in the distance. With the view of the mountain from the lanai they sounded like some sort of mythic creatures; possibly Kenny was just in a great mood. He realized that the rest of the evening with Cartman might be trying, but it would be worth it for the morning with Butters. He tugged the heavy cover off the jacuzzi and slid into the water, full of gratitude and optimism.

When he got out the afternoon had mellowed, though the sun wasn't quite sinking yet. He dried off and checked his phone, not surprised to see that he had a voicemail from Kyle.

"Kenny," Kyle said. A labored sigh. "Stan said you called earlier. I'm sorry I missed you. I hate my work schedule, I feel like I'm sacrificing my whole life to that place. Anyway, I guess you're okay? Cartman hasn't ruined everything yet? I hate the idea of you in his employ. Everything's the same here. Still no proposal. Someone left a message on Stan's newest video yesterday saying that he's hot and that he should do his videos shirtless. My life is pretty much over as soon as he realizes the power of these comments and the potential they signify. I know I shouldn't read them. I'm just torturing myself! Okay, it's almost dinner time. Stan is making fajitas. Say hello to Butters for me? No, don't bother. Alright, I'd better go. Take care of yourself. Delete this message immediately. And call me back!"

Kenny was exhausted by the idea of calling Kyle back and listening to more of that. He pocketed his phone and went into the kitchen, surprised to find the fridge completely empty except for a few jars of condiments on the door. When he shut the door, Cartman emerged from the master bedroom looking as if the sound of activity in the kitchen had summoned him from a deep slumber.

"We should go to the store," Cartman said. "Foodland, it's nearby. They have good poke." He stared at Kenny for a moment, then reached up under his shirt to scratch at his sagging stomach. "That's raw fish. Marinated. It's good."

"I know what poke is," Kenny said, though only the words 'raw fish' had jogged his memory. Cartman shrugged.

"Plus," he said. "We can get stuff to make mai tais. Real ones, no more pomegranate juice."

"Cool," Kenny said, though he didn't want to drink much. He planned to be fresh as a daisy for his meeting with Butters. "You want me to drive?"

"What? Where?"

"Uh, to Foodland?"

"No, I'm fine, I haven't had anything to drink yet. I meant we'd make drinks here, when we get back." Cartman gave Kenny a suspicious look. He was barefoot; Kenny had never noticed or considered how fat Cartman's feet were. They looked like they belonged to a cartoon character, Flintstones-like. "You got a problem with my driving?" Cartman asked.

"No."

"I drive like a man, Kenny. That's how men drive."

"Yeah? Who taught you?"

Kenny realized that was a cruel question, as Cartman had no father and had in fact been responsible for the death of the man who sired him a good five years before he was eligible to start driving lessons, but he was tired of getting looked at askance when he hadn't even done anything yet, never mind the fact that he was planning to betray Cartman outrageously and as soon as possible.

"I taught myself to drive," Cartman said, possibly not lying. "Have you ever thought about the fact that both my mother and my father had the word 'man' in their last names? Huh? I find that prophetic and encouraging. Now put your shoes on and let's go."

There wasn't much to fear with Cartman behind the wheel on the way to the grocery store: the store was less than three minutes away, and the twisting back roads offered no opportunity for speeding. The parking lot was slammed when they arrived, maybe because it was early evening. Kenny always experienced a kind of dread when he walked into grocery stores that seemed even the slightest bit fancy, and though this one was called Foodland and resembled the cluttered Sooper Foods back home, he was intimidated by the sheer fact that it was in Hawaii. He began noting prices as they browsed, and was not surprised to find that everything cost at least a few dollars more than what he would pay for it back home.

Cartman seemed unencumbered by this phenomenon. He picked up several containers of poke from the deli, two specialty cheeses, a stick of high-end salami, orange juice, avocados, mixed nuts, six boxes of microwave noodles, bananas, and a whole bag of limes. In the alcohol aisle he selected two different kinds of rum, orgeat syrup and a bottle of champagne. After some frowning and muttering to himself he made a second run around the store, this time grabbing tortilla chips, salsa, water crackers, a bag of coffee and a couple of two-liter bottles of soda. Kenny wanted to ask him if everything he ate was snack food, but the answer was obvious and the question was mean. This was how Liane had fed Cartman, at his request, for as long as Kenny could remember. He wondered if Butters ever protested the junk food or tried to provide healthier options, and assumed Cartman would have only snarled at any attempts to change his diet.

"It says the card is declined," the cashier said when all of this had been rung up and bagged for them. The total was almost two hundred dollars. Cartman sputtered while the cashier stared.

"No, wait-- What?" Cartman said. He scratched at his receding hairline, doing his best to look puzzled while the back of his neck turned bright red. There was an elderly couple in Hawaiian print shirts in line behind them. They looked aggravated, and as if they would not have trouble paying for their own modest selections, which were waiting on the register's conveyor belt. Kenny's mouth went dry when Cartman tried another card and it was also declined. Kenny had seen this happen before, many times as a kid, and had once been shuttled to a police station along with his siblings after his mother accused the cashier of laughing at her and tried to grab her hair in retaliation.

"Maybe it's a problem with the system," Kenny said. He dug out his wallet, enveloped by deep-rooted fear when he handed a card over and prayed this one would work so they could flee the stares of everyone who had noticed and huddle in their house with whatever groceries they could manage to purchase. He laughed with relief and genuine surprise when his card went through and the cash register began spitting out a long receipt. Cartman had gone silent, and he said nothing as they walked out to the car, Kenny pushing the cart. "I guess you need to call your bank," Kenny said as they loaded the groceries. "Let them know you're in Hawaii. They probably think your card got stolen."

The sun had gone down while they shopped, and Kenny watched with alarm as Cartman climbed into the passenger seat and proceeded to chew on his thumbnail. Kenny went around to the driver's side and found the keys waiting for him on the seat.

"You want me to drive?" Kenny said, picking them up.

"The fuck does it look like?" Cartman scowled down at his thumb. He'd already managed to draw blood from the side of his nail bed. "You think you're such a great driver? Go right ahead. Be my fucking guest."

"Um, okay." Kenny fell into the driver's seat and shut the door. "You'll have to tell me which turns to take."

"Duh."

Cartman was slow to mention the turns, and he protested angrily when Kenny passed them. In the dark, he seemed to be just as confused about which roads to take as Kenny or any other newcomer to the north shore. They ended up shouting at each other, which Kenny preferred to the awkward silence and thumb-biting, but it again reminded him too vividly of childhood shopping trips that ended in embarrassment, tears, and raised voices in his dad's truck. By the time they got to the apartment's lot he was in a bad enough mood to tell Cartman that he had to help carry the grocery bags, the last of his sympathy for that humiliation in the check-out line dissolved.

Cartman selected two of the lightest bags and stomped ahead along the illuminated pathway that led toward the condo. Kenny hurried to follow, already rattled by that drive in the pitch dark and not wanting to get lost again. He hadn't realized how country this place was until night fell and the roadsides became as black as the most remote mountain passages at home.

Inside the condo, Cartman started rifling through the bags. He was clearly on the verge of some kind of meltdown over his credit card situation, and Kenny wasn't surprised to see him begin to eat poke from one container with his fingers. After stuffing a few slimy pieces of the fish into his mouth, Cartman dove back into the bags and came up with the stick of salami. He clawed the plastic sheath away and sunk his teeth into the hunk of meat as if it was an over-sized stick of jerky, gnawing until he'd come away with the end of it in his mouth. Watching him decimate the thing with snarling determination made Kenny's dick shrivel up with instinctive horror.

"Hey, hey," Kenny said, approaching Cartman and the salami. "Let me fix us a plate, okay? You could make us some drinks while I get the food ready. Yeah?"

Cartman stared at Kenny for a moment, feral with a kind of shameless rage Kenny hadn't seen on him in since childhood. His mouth was greasy from the salami and the fish, and the fist that clutched the salami was shaking. Kenny reached out and gently removed it from Cartman's hand, uncurling one fat finger at a time. He could hear Cartman breathing hard through his nose.

"A drink sounds really good right now," Kenny said. "Right?"

"I make a good mai tai," Cartman muttered. "The traditional way. The way the Hawaiian, uh. Natives do."

"Awesome. That sounds great. Here." Kenny handed Cartman a dish towel with palm trees on it. "Wipe your mouth. That's good. I'll put this stuff away while you make our drinks. Here you go." Kenny handed Cartman the two bottles of rum, which seemed to calm him instantly.

Kenny put the groceries away while Cartman harvested crushed ice from the dispenser on the fridge door. He seemed okay, but Kenny kept an eye on him while he worked. The declined credit cards were bad news for both of them. He tried not to think about it as he arranged expensive appetizers on plates. He sliced the salami, cutting away the part that Cartman had gnawed on and discreetly brushing it into the trash can under the sink. There were small knives for the cheese, and Kenny fanned the crackers out around the edge of the plate, wishing he'd thought to get grapes, or any kind of produce other than avocado and lime. He set out another plate with poke and spoons, popped open the mixed nuts and decided they didn't need chips and salsa with this feast, though Cartman would certainly eat it if Kenny put it out. He figured, with their new looming budget constraints, they had better not gorge too extravagantly this first night.

"Who won the baseball game today?" Kenny asked as Cartman shook together the contents of one drink. He hoped this wasn't a dangerous question.

"Nobody," Cartman said. He seemed calm, and his hands were steady when he poured a mai tai into a glass of crushed ice with lime. "It was an off day. Game five is tomorrow."

They moved into the kitchen with their drinks and snacks, and Kenny was very grateful to find a marathon of King of the Hill episodes on TV. This show had always calmed the McCormick family down after a bad blow-up at home. It seemed to have a similar effect on Cartman, and soon he was laughing and flopping back onto the couch, his drink balanced on his belly and crumbs gathering on his shirt.

"You want to know the truth?" Cartman asked after the food had been consumed and they had both finished two mai tais. Cartman had a third resting on his stomach, but he was at least drinking this one more slowly. King of the Hill had gone to commercials. Kenny turned the volume down.

"The truth?" he said. "About what?" He felt like the answer was probably 'no,' whatever the subject was. Cartman drank from his mai tai and moaned.

"This place," he said. "This condo. It was mine, all right? Back in oh-seven, I bought it for me and Butters. Our love nest. See that Buddha thing?" He gestured with his glass to the Buddha that crowned the fireplace. "I got that in Malaysia. Butters was with me. He picked it out."

"Wow," Kenny said, not sure if he believed this. "So why'd you tell me it's your buddy's place?"

"Because it fucking is, Kenny, are you paying attention? I'm broke. I had to sell this place four years ago, and now the asshole who bought it lets me and Butters stay here once a year at a discount. Some fucking discount-- He waives the cleaning fee, big deal. Asshole. Anyway, this, this was supposed to be ours, but it's not. I'm in trouble, you dick. Don't act like you can't tell."

Kenny was stunned silent by that, and when the show came back on he left the volume low. Cartman drank more and didn't ask Kenny to turn up the sound. He'd probably seen this episode before; Kenny had, at least twice.

"Cartman," Kenny said. "Do you have a gambling problem?"

"Gambling-- Are you fucking joking? No, Kenny, I don't have a gambling problem, I have a the U.S. economy fucking crashed problem, and I was in fucking real estate!"

"Okay, jesus, you don't have to yell."

"I'll yell if I goddamn want to, this is my house!" Cartman peered into his drink, deflating. "Anyway," he muttered. "I decorated it. Butters helped."

"I bet Butters understands about the financial issues," Kenny said, not sure where else to start. "I mean, you're right. The bubble burst, uh. It's not your fault." Kenny was sure that it was Cartman's fault, in the sense that he represented the worst kind of selfish, greedy investor who had created the problem in the first place, but now wasn't the time for that truth.

"Well, everything's ruined," Cartman said, a weird kind of cheer surfacing when he said so. "But I'm going to get Butters back, at least. Starting tomorrow. You're my golden ticket."

"Sure," Kenny said, and he got up to clear the empty plates. When he returned for his melted mai tai glass, Cartman was asleep with his head thrown back and his mouth open, his half-finished drink tipping precariously in his hand. He woke when Kenny took it from him, snorting and startled. "You should go to bed," Kenny said. "It's been a long day."

"Don't tell me what to do in my own house," Cartman said, mumbling, but then he got up and slumped into the master bedroom. At first, Kenny thought he'd left the door open, which was weird. As he walked closer, hoping to shut it himself, he realized the master bedroom had no door, which was weirder.

After he'd cleaned up a bit in the kitchen, Kenny went into the guest bedroom and stretched out on the antique opium bed. Surely there was a story behind this piece of furniture, too; maybe it was also Malaysian. Cartman and Butters had once bragged about their extravagant vacations so often that Kenny had to listen to Kyle complain about it. He tried to picture Cartman and Butters together in Malaysia, lounging around some posh resort after a day of visiting the local bazaars and purchasing things to be shipped to their second house on Kauai. Cartman seemed like the worst sort of fool for behaving as if that lifestyle could last, but maybe Kenny was only projecting. Living with Glory in California, signing the papers to buy the vineyard, meeting with designers who consulted on their wine bottle labels-- He'd known that it wouldn't last. It had been excruciating to hope that he was wrong, and his fear that he wasn't made no impact on his behavior or spending, which was maybe why he felt sorry for Cartman. He tucked that sympathy away and rolled onto his side, unwilling to let it cloud his mission here: tomorrow he would reconnect with Butters and finally find a place in the world where he could linger safely, even if it meant uncurling Cartman's fingers from the ledge of his own cushy enclave.


	2. Chapter 2

Kenny's cell phone alarm went off at six in the morning. He'd already been awake for an hour, lying in bed and fidgeting with anticipation. He felt like a hologram of himself, sent back in time to show Butters his hand before Cartman got his talons in him, now with the knowledge and experience to go for what he really wanted. When he got dressed his fingers were shaking, and he couldn't even stomach a full glass of orange juice. He thought of checking in on Cartman before he left -- not to wake him, just to check -- but then couldn't think of why he should. He could hear Cartman snoring from the hallway; he was fine.

The sun was rising as Kenny made his way to the rented Jeep, and the air seemed lit with possibility, offering opportunity without the bitter accompaniment of potential failure. He felt confident as he pulled out of the parking lot, driving without Cartman's observation and with his phone giving him clear directions to Ke'e Beach, resting on the passenger seat like a much more helpful partner. He tried not to think too much about what Cartman said last night, about how the condo was supposed to be a love nest and the Buddha had traveled from Malaysia to grace its sitting room. This wasn't about Cartman and Butters, not entirely. Kenny thought he'd at least earned the right to talk to Butters on a sunny beach without going into the details of his actual reason for being here, but as he pulled out onto the road that lead north he already had a twisting sensation in his gut. He thought of Butters' soft blue eyes, his easy trust, and how hard it was to lie to him, even by omission.

He took the road north slowly, cautious of its sharp turns and high cliffs. The views were beautiful, and birds flitted through the dense greenery that lined the highways, but Kenny kept his eyes mostly on the road, though there was little traffic. He had to pass over four one-lane bridges, and while he was normally a confident driver even on the steepest mountain roads, this new terrain made him nervous. As soon as he made it there and saw Butters, everything would be fine, but he was cognizant of the shadow of Death snickering in the background like always, waiting to mess things up.

The road ended in a gravel parking lot that served the northernmost beach, which sat before the start of a hiking trail that wound along the west side of the island, through federally preserved land. The parking lot had three cars in it already, one that was marked with official lifeguard tags. As Kenny got out of the Jeep, the lifeguard was opening up a short, white tower that overlooked the beach. Kenny's heart was racing, but on top of that he felt a kind of determined calm, like those that sometimes came over him right before an unavoidable death. The ocean sounded different up north, both sleepier and more menacing. He felt ready to face whatever waited for him there: Butters’ rage at his plot with Cartman, Butters’ relief at his presence in the midst of this other chaos, and just Butters, generally. It suddenly seemed impossible that Kenny could be anywhere else right now. 

At first the beach appeared empty, aside from a family of four who were snorkeling at the far end, but then Kenny saw him: Butters, sitting with his feet just barely within reach of the water. He had his back to the parking lot and his knees hugged to his chest. Kenny could tell, even twenty feet off, that Butters' skin was sun-kissed after two weeks spent here, and his hair was just a little lighter than it had been at home.

"Butters!" he called, and the grin Butters gave him when he turned melted him. It was like he was here with the best of both worlds: the light-hearted Butters he had walked on the beach with as a kid, and the grown-up version who might want the same things Kenny did now.

They embraced at the shoreline, laughing and babbling greetings, and Kenny felt as if the elaborate time travel ritual he had embarked upon was made real when Butters hugged him. Butters seemed as if he'd been returned to a kind of youthful vision of himself, too; clearly this place had healed him. He beamed when he leaned back, still holding onto Kenny's arms.

"I had half a mind to think I dreamed that phone call!" Butters said. "I kept checking my phone log to make sure it was still real."

"Well, I'm here," Kenny said, flustered. He wished that Cartman wasn't lurking here on the island, not far enough away, and that he could enjoy this moment as much as Butters seemed to be. "Are you doing okay?" Kenny asked, wanting to smooth Butters' hair down when the wind made it stick up in back.

"Course I am!" Butters said. "Look at this place, ain't it nice?"

Kenny's vision had tunneled to Butters on the way toward the water, and he hadn't allowed himself to take in the beach they stood on. Verdant mountains overlooked the clear water, which darkened to a sparkling turquoise twenty feet out, and the beach seemed to stretch on endlessly toward the south, no one in sight.

"Let's go for a walk," Butters said, tugging on Kenny's arm. "The lifeguard told me there's a monk seal sleeping down there a'ways."

"Cool," Kenny said. He was already getting choked up, his throat tightening as he strained to hold the truth in. "You look great," he said, unable to contain that particular admission. Butters smiled and swatted at him.

"Oh, heck," he said. "Kauai shaves five years off me, doesn't it? You don't look so bad yourself, mister, but I can tell you're coming from winter in Colorado. You'll shake that right off in a few days. How've you been?"

"I feel great now," Kenny said. "Here, I mean. At home, ah. I've been staying with Stan and Kyle. It’s fine, but it doesn’t feel like real life, or, like I’m going anywhere? I need a restart. I guess that's why I'm here."

"You sure picked the right place! I've been looking for a restart, too, to be honest with you. Seems you've heard about me and Eric and our troubles."

"Yeah." Kenny knew this was the time to tell Butters about Cartman being here, wanting him back. "Um," he said, instead. "How'd all that, like. Come to pass?"

"Well, you've met Eric."

"Yes, right."

Butters sighed. "He's always been a fixer-upper, but I liked that about him. Eric's real sincere, deep down, and I suppose I liked getting my hands dirty, you know, peeling back all the layers? He tries to seem tough, but he's really pretty helpless. And you know I like helping."

"I do." Kenny was keeping his eye out for that seal, wishing that they had started with some topic other than Cartman.

"But the fact is," Butters said, frowning down at the surf. "He's cheating on me, and he won't admit it, even though he got caught."

"Shit." Hearing this, Kenny was instantly absolved of his guilt at wanting Butters for himself, and so glad for the excuse to embrace that want that he felt guilty all over again, for being happy to hear that Butters had been cheated on after all. "With, um. Who was he cheating with when you caught him?"

"Heck, I don't know! I didn't catch him in the sense that he had his wiener in some fella's butt or anything like that. But he said he had business meetings, and I started getting suspicious, because he'd seem real nervous beforehand, and Eric never gets nervous about doing business. I called up the companies he said he was meeting with, and nope, no sir, no meetings with Mr. Cartman on the books. That happened three times before I worked up the nerve to confront him."

Butters had gotten visibly glum, his shoulders slumped and his steps beginning to drag as the water surged up to wash over their ankles. Kenny patted his back.

"Breaking up's hard," he said. "Glory really trashed my heart. And it wasn't just her I lost, it was my whole life out there. But time helps."

"Time, yeah." Butters sighed again. Kenny was jealous. He somehow hadn't expected Butters to be in real pain over Cartman being unfaithful. He'd pictured Butters laughing with a coconut full of rum in his hand, saying that he had no idea what he'd ever seen in that asshole, as if a spell had been broken.

"What did he say when you confronted him?" Kenny asked.

"Oh, you know Eric, what he's like when he gets caught red-handed and he still thinks he can get away with it somehow. He started blustering real unconvincing-like and told me I didn't understand what he was going through. Like I'm too stupid to know we're in financial trouble! I suspect that's what led to his wandering eye, he wants to feel like a man again or what have you. Well, I may be fond of fixer-uppers, but I'm no doormat, Kenny, and I won't stand for him lying to my face."

"Of course not, and you shouldn't."

"I didn't want a whole scene and groveling and all that, so I booked a one way ticket here, left him a note saying where I'd gone, and I asked if he'd give me a few weeks to be alone with my thoughts. Know how many times he's called me since then?"

"No," Kenny said, wincing. "Is it in the hundreds?"

"Three hundred and six, and he's filled my whole voicemail box with messages. He's usually drunk when he leaves a message, and I don't have the heart to listen to them. How, um. Have you seen him, at home? How's he doing?"

Kenny stopped walking, disappointed that they hadn't yet reached the monk seal. Maybe it had retreated back into the water. He sighed when Butters turned to give him a puzzled look. Now was the time, but Kenny wasn't ready for the peaceful portion of their day to end.

"Butters," Kenny said. "I have to tell you something."

"Oh god!" Butters grabbed Kenny's shoulders. "Jesus, no, he's done it, hasn't he?"

"Done-- What now?"

"Killed himself!" Butters' eyes filled with tears. "You came here to tell me in person, didn't you?"

"What-- No, Butters, god! He's not dead, he's here, with me, on Kauai, back at the condo. He didn't want me to tell you over the phone." Kenny mumbled that last part, watching the panic drain from Butters' expression. His normally soft features hardened into confusion, then anger.

“Say again?” Butters' grip tightened on Kenny's arms. It felt a bit like a threat. Kenny filled his cheeks with air and then blew it out.

“Cartman came here with me. He paid for my ticket, he. Asked me to wait to tell you, um, until we were. Together, here. Today.”

“You're working for Eric now?” Butters seemed disgusted by the concept in a way that Kenny found almost pleasing. He dropped Kenny’s arms and turned away from him. “Oh, god. That's the worst thing I've ever heard.”  
“Butters wait. Hang on. A second ago you thought I was going to tell you Cartman killed himself, just. Calm down for a sec, let's sit.”

“What does he think?” Butters asked, whirling to face Kenny again. “He thinks he can use you to talk me back home? Like we're kids again? That's pretty sick, even for him. And especially for you.”

“Don't,” Kenny said, so wounded that he didn't hear himself begging Butters not to hurt him until the word was already out. He knew he didn't deserve the reprieve, and he let his head hang. “I know,” Kenny said. “It's pathetic. I felt like I was out of options. I know that's not an excuse. I wanted to see you, and I just let wanting to see you sweep me up until suddenly I was here. Am here.”

That was the truth. He was afraid to raise his eyes to Butters, aware that he didn't deserve to gaze upon him here in this paradise, and he flinched when Butters touched his jaw.

“Kenny,” Butters said, softly. He lifted Kenny's chin until their eyes met. Butters seemed incredibly sad; he shook his head. “I wasn't going to hit you,” he said.

“I know.”

They embraced again, holding nothing back this time. Kenny's chest quaked, but he was able to keep himself from crying. Butters smelled like cream cheese, faintly. He'd always put gobs of the stuff on his bagels, more even than Cartman.

“Oh,” Butters said when he pulled back, blinking. “Don't cry.”

“I'm not. I'm sorry. I didn't want to lie.”

“I know, geez, Kenny. I know how he is.”

Kenny was vaguely insulted by that, though he knew he deserved to be accused of falling under Cartman's poisonous sway. He let go of Butters and turned back toward the ocean, pulling his hands through his hair and trying to get a grip on his emotions. Butters touched his hip and pointed at the coastline, further down the beach.

“There he is,” Butters said. “They've got his signs up and everything.”

“Oh,” Kenny said, narrowing his eyes. “The seal.”

“Yep, he's having a little nap. C'mon, let's get a closer look.”

Kenny was tempted to take Butters’ hand as they walked toward the seal, but he didn’t dare. He knew he was on thin ice already; he could feel Butters wanting to forgive him but still reeling from the news that he was here as part of a Cartman-authored plot. They came to stand outside the barriers that were marked around the seal, a sign that announced the seal’s endangered species status and three little flags pushed into the sand that warned not to get too close. The seal slept on without notice, and Kenny had to squat down to make sure it was breathing. 

“They can sleep for a long time,” Butters said. “Days at a time, even. Imagine if every time you took a nap someone would tiptoe up and put signs around you saying you were not to be disturbed, under penalty of law? I love seeing them sleep, but it makes me sad, too. They’re endangered ‘cause people took advantage of them when they were just trying to have a rest on the beach.” 

“Butters,” Kenny said, still squatting near the seal. Despite its endangered status, it appeared to be smiling while it slept. “I’m so sorry.” 

“For what?” Butters knelt down and put his hand on Kenny’s back. 

“For being here,” Kenny said. “For doing this.” 

“Oh, but I’m glad you’re here! And you’re not doing anything. Eric is.” 

Kenny didn’t like the sound of that, though he knew it was true. He longed to be a man of action, though not in the blundering, self-obsessed way that Cartman was. Maybe that was the only way to do it. He stood and dug out his phone. 

“This is for Stan and Kyle,” Kenny said when he took a picture of the seal. “Did I tell you I’m staying with them in South Park?”

“Yeah,” Butters said. “And I’d figured you were.” 

Kenny was hurt by that, but he knew he deserved it. He nodded and concentrated on texting the picture to Kyle. _Seal on the beach_ , he typed, and then, _not dead, just sleeping_. 

“Speaking of where you’re staying these days,” Butters said. “You, um, mentioned a condo, on the phone?” He winced. “It’s not our old place, is it? Me and Eric’s?”

“I’m afraid it is.” 

“Aw, hell.” Butters stared forlornly at the seal. Kenny wanted to offer to leave him alone, to fly home to South Park and hide from his life on Stan and Kyle’s couch indefinitely. “He just can’t let go of that place,” Butters said. “Or me,” he added, more quietly. “Or anything. Even with the way he’s behaved. He threw it all away on his own, understand. Me included!”

“I know,” Kenny said. “He wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Always has.” 

“So he’s back there?” Butters asked, still wincing a little. “Ah-- At the condo? Awaiting word from you about my whereabouts?”

“He’s asleep.” Kenny felt stupid making this distinction, as if what Butters had assumed wasn’t accurate. “But, yeah. Basically.” 

“That’s troubling,” Butters said, knocking his fists together. “I guess I knew he’d fly out here eventually and try to hunt me down, but he’s brought you-- It’s weird, Kenny.”

“I know it’s weird. I know. I’m sorry, I just thought-- I guess I was being selfish, I mean, obviously I was, but I also wanted to be here, um. If you needed a friend. If you needed help getting rid of him. I didn’t tell him that, of course, I just fed his ego all the way here, but I didn’t want you to have to confront him alone. Unless you want to?” 

“No,” Butters said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t even do it back in South Park, when I found out he’d been lying to me. I just left. Hell, Kenny, I really am glad you’re here. It just seems real fishy at the same time is all. On Eric’s part, I mean.” He gave Kenny a glance like he wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t fishy on his part as well. Kenny was almost tempted to blurt that he’d come here because he’d re-fallen in love with Butters’ memory, but it wasn’t the time for confessions. Butters sighed. “Well,” he said. “I brought my snorkeling stuff. It’s back in my trunk, in the parking lot-- What do you say? You still want to see some fish?” 

“Yeah,” Kenny said, almost teary with gratitude. “Of course, yeah, let’s do it.” 

They were mostly quiet on the walk back toward the parking lot, and Kenny decided to not to attempt any chatter about the flight, or Cartman, or anything else. He wanted to give Butters some time to process everything he’d just been told. Butters seemed cheerful enough when they were standing at the trunk of the Corolla that Butters was driving, divvying up the snorkeling gear. 

“They don’t have the best snorkeling here,” Butters said. “But there might be some turtles, and the water’s pretty calm today. Remember when we snorkeled here as kids? In the south, I mean, at Poipu?”

“Of course, yeah. I remember everything about that trip.”

“I don’t remember much about the flight over,” Butters said. He was smiling and fidgeting with his snorkel mask. “I was a real mess. Same thing this time around, actually. I cried so much on the plane that one of the attendants slipped me a Xanax! Can you believe that? Now that’s service!” 

Kenny was struck by the fact that this sounded like something Cartman would say, and yet from Butters it was entirely sincere, if not entirely innocent. 

“Sorry he made you so upset,” Kenny said. “I hope you’ve felt better since getting off the plane?”

“Well, sure.” Butters looked down and shrugged. “Anyway, it’s a long process, grieving for a relationship and so forth, and now Eric’s shown up to draw it all out even more. Oh, well! Let’s go, before the tide changes.” 

Kenny felt jumpy as they waded into the ocean, which was warm and not as calm as Butters seemed to think it was, at least in Kenny’s somewhat inexperienced view. He was clumsy in the flippers Butters had loaned him, which were too tight, and he got tossed around a little as he tried to follow Butters into deeper water. The family that had been in the water earlier had departed, and the lifeguard was around somewhere but not in sight. Kenny dipped his face into the water and breathed through the snorkel, feeling a little panicked until he caught sight of his first fish, a few yellow tangs darting away as he moved toward them. Butters was in view, too, paddling up ahead. Kenny had to force his breathing to calm, and his mask was a little foggy. He wanted to let go and just drift, but he couldn’t force it. He still felt near to the island’s peaceful nature but not quite within it, even as he followed Butters into deeper waters and through a school of dark blue fish. 

They were only in the water for about half an hour, and the undertow was getting strong as they headed back to shore. Kenny pulled his flippers off halfway there, a little sad to be done already but also somewhat relieved. They hadn’t seen any turtles, but one menacing eel had gaped up at him from its rocky hiding place. 

“Tomorrow we can go to Tunnels,” Butters said when they were sitting together and watching the water, both a little breathless. “You have to go real early, but we’re sure to see some turtles there.” 

“Sounds good,” Kenny said. “What about tonight? Do you, um. Have dinner plans?”

“Well, no.” Butters brightened a little. “We could go to Mediterranean Grill,” he said. “I know the owner.” 

“Yeah.” Kenny scratched at the back of his neck and looked out at the horizon. The sky was dotted with fat white clouds that cast individual shadows over the surface of the ocean, the breeze and temperature were heavenly, and Kenny had no shortage of bad news to deliver, despite their surroundings. He told himself that it was better to be upfront than cagey. “The thing is, Cartman wanted to take you to dinner tonight. And I’d be there, too. If, uh. You have any interest in confronting him. Talking with him, I mean.” 

Kenny glanced over at Butters. He looked contemplative but not upset. He had sand on his cheek, and Kenny allowed himself to imagine brushing it away with the back of one finger, Butters turning to him, their eyes locking in an irreversible way. 

“Eric said he wants that?” Butters asked. 

“Yeah. He made a reservation, uh. He says it’s the best restaurant on the island.” 

“Up north?” Butters wrinkled his nose. “I wonder which one he means.” 

“Does it matter?” Kenny regretted the question; it seemed kind of snotty. Butters just grinned and glanced over at him. 

“I suppose not,” he said. “Well. You’d be there?”

“Definitely, yeah. If you want me.” 

“I do,” Butter said. It occurred to Kenny slowly, maybe too late, that their eyes had locked. Butters was searching Kenny’s, looking slightly frightened but not of him. When Butters trusted someone it overflowed from him and warmed the air. He still trusted Kenny; it was palpable, like an invitation to come closer. 

“Then I’ll be there,” Kenny said. His eyes were burning a little, maybe from the saltwater. “I’ll find out where-- I guess you would meet us there? Unless you need a ride?”

Butters shook his head. “I’m fixing to go start my volunteer shift at the botanical garden,” he said. “I’ll be there most of the day, then I can clean up and get a ride to the restaurant with my friend Dave.” 

“Dave,” Kenny said, jealously. 

“Yeah, he works at the garden. He’s sixty-three years old,” Butters said, smiling. Kenny shrugged and looked out at the ocean. “I feel like everyone I’m friends with here is at least twenty years older than me,” Butters said. “It’s, well. It’s nice to be here with someone younger, for a chance. To be with you, I mean,” he said. 

Kenny turned to him again, his heart beginning to race like it had when he first slipped under the water and tried to breathe through the snorkel. There was something almost calculating about the way Butters was looking at him. It hadn’t occurred to Kenny that he might be some kind of rebound fling, and he didn’t want to entertain the suspicion. Butters wasn’t like that, as far as he knew, but there were still unfathomable things about him, such as his attraction to somebody like Cartman.  

“I should get back,” Kenny said, standing. He helped Butters up, and kept hold of his hand after he was standing. “You look really good.” He kept blurting things like this without meaning to, and it made him feel overly young, though as a kid he’d been suave and aloof, often silent. Butters just grinned and took his hand, then shook it like they were making introductions. 

“You look good, too,” he said. “Better now that you got some saltwater in your hair.” 

Kenny touched his hair, self-conscious about how disordered it was, and Butters laughed. They walked to their cars together and talked about normal things: the one-lane bridges on the drive up, prices at Foodland, and the roosters that started crowing around three AM. 

“I like it,” Kenny said. “There’s something comforting about knowing they’re out there.” 

“That’s true,” Butters said. “I remember me and you laughing about that when we were kids. We thought it was the best joke, them roosters keeping all the old people awake.” 

“Yep.” They had shared a bedroom at some old couple’s condo. The windows had been open to the screens on both sides of the room, so the trade winds could blow through. Kenny had never been so comfortable in a room without air conditioning, before or since, and he had spent a lot of nights in rooms without air conditioning. 

He promised to text Butters the details when he got back to the condo and consulted with Cartman. Butters was driving a dented white Corolla, and he turned off the main road when he reached the botanical garden, which was just minutes from the beach parking lot. He waved back at Kenny as he passed in the Jeep, headed south. Kenny had to force himself to pay attention to the road, his hands a little shaky on the wheel and his chest jittery with hope. He wouldn’t allow himself be a rebound: he couldn’t do that, he was too old and too weather-beaten already. He wanted to believe he could be something else, bigger and more solid than anything Butters had with Cartman, something that could travel all the way back to the mainland. He would also be unopposed to staying here on Kauai with Butters forever, if it came to that.

He knew he was getting ahead of himself by many miles, but it felt good to be filled with the kind of excitement he hadn’t managed since adolescence, back when he’d thought his good looks would help him sail through a life of fun romances and nonstop handouts. It embarrassed him to remember himself that way, seventeen and learning at last to get high off the potent combination of his own charm and a sense of bruised entitlement, but it was still intoxicating to indulge in even a lungful of that kind of arrogant expectation, especially after years of sobering humility. Now he had sand behind his ears and a dinner date with Butters, to be witnessed by the fool who had blown it with him. He felt only a pinprick of pity for Cartman, knowing now that he had cheated. Of course he had. Cartman had never been able to hold onto anything good without tossing it into the wind and chasing after the chance of something better.

Back at the condo, the landscapers were on the property, trimming and edging the foliage along the winding pathways that lead to Cartman’s place. Kenny had to apologetically duck by several of them on his way to Cartman’s front door, and he felt like an asshole, as if he should turn around and tell them he was just faking at belonging in one of these condos, because obviously he was one of them, ready to put out his hands and have somebody place a weed whacker into them. He had done landscaping in high school, and had surrendered most of that money to the family grocery fund. Still, those incidents with his mother in the check-out line had popped up now and again. 

He was in a sour mood again when he walked into the condo, trying to refocus his irritation on Cartman and his disloyalty, but when he saw Cartman eating poke and potato chips at the dining room table some of his anger abated. Cartman looked frightened, as if he was awaiting the news that Kenny had fucked Butters on the beach and that they were co-evicting him from the island at once. 

“Well?” Cartman barked, balling up a napkin as he wiped potato chip grease from his hands. “What happened?”

“I told him you’re here,” Kenny said. “And I invited him to dinner with us tonight. Just like we planned.” 

“And?”

“He was surprised, but not too surprised. He said yes to dinner.” Kenny stood at the head of the table, watching Cartman try to process this. He was running his tongue over his teeth, his eyes narrowed. “You’re welcome,” Kenny said. 

“Why are you damp?” Cartman asked. “You went swimming or some shit?”

“We snorkeled. It helped break up the tension after I told him what was going on. You know, you don’t have to talk when you’re snorkeling.” 

“I know what fucking snorkeling is, Kenny.” 

“I’m gonna take a shower. Oh-- But tell me where we’re meeting tonight, and what time. I said I’d text him the details.” 

“Bar Acuda, seven o’clock. Wait just a goddamn minute!” he shouted when Kenny turned toward the guest room. “How did he seem?” Cartman was still worrying the crumpled napkin between his hands. “What did he say?”

“He said you cheated on him.” 

“That bullshit again! I told the little fucker, I’ve never so much as sniffed another guy’s dick since we’ve been together. Never, Kenny! And don’t stand there thinking it was easy just because I’m fat, okay? I’m a very successful-- I was a very successful businessman, and with that comes a certain allure. You wouldn’t understand, I know, but I had temptations!”

“Okay,” Kenny said, backing toward the guest room now. “Well. Butters said he caught you red-handed.” 

“What the-- He’s lying! He says he saw me with my dick in somebody else’s ass?”

“No, in fact he said precisely that he didn’t see that. He told me you were claiming to have business appointments that weren’t real, so he put one and two together. Were you off gambling or something?” Kenny hadn’t considered that Butters might have been mistaken. Having an affair seemed like a given for someone with Cartman’s lack of ethics and loyalty. Why wouldn’t he? 

Cartman was speechless at the table. He had crushed the napkin fully into his left fist, and his hand was trembling a little. 

“It’s none of your goddamn business where I was!” he said, suddenly bellowing. “Go take your fucking shower, your hair looks like shit.” 

Kenny patted his hair down on the way to the guest bathroom, rattled by Cartman’s random rage. Maybe Butters was right, but when Cartman lied about something he tended to be smooth, unwavering and collected. Plus, there was no reason for him to lie to Kenny about the affair. It wasn’t like Kenny didn’t already know that Butters deserved better.

After showering, Kenny took some extra time with his hair and put on the nicest outfit he’d brought: a new-ish gray polo and jeans that made his ass look “less flat,” according to Kyle. He thought about calling Stan and Kyle and filling them in on this latest development with Butters, but decided to wait until after dinner. A lot could change once Cartman and Butters were reunited, and Kenny tried not to nurture his fear that they would fall back together easily and take Stan and Kyle’s place as the couple who loudly fucked the night away in the next room while Kenny contemplated his loneliness. 

Cartman started drinking three hours before their reservation, and though Kenny was tempted to join him he decided it would be wiser to stay sober, at least for the purpose of driving there. He was anxious as they headed toward the car, and on the verge of telling Cartman to put on a different shirt, because the Hawaiian print button-down he had on over his baggy khakis made him look particularly enormous. Kenny had no reason to encourage Cartman to look his best for Butters, in fact quite the opposite, but not doing so was making him uncomfortable all the same, as if he wasn’t playing fairly. 

As soon as they were on the highway, Cartman put down the passenger side window and stuck his head out like a dog, closing his eyes against the wind. Kenny decided not to ask, and they spent most of the drive listening to a local broadcast about the upcoming congressional elections. Many of the yards they passed had signs supporting politicians. 

“This restaurant is really good,” Cartman said when they were in sight of it, looking for parking. It was located in an old two-story house with a wrap-around porch, and there was a sizable crowd gathered near the porch steps, warm light glowing from the windows on both floors. Cartman was fidgeting with his seatbelt and had applied a medicinal-smelling chapstick twice during the ten minute drive. “I’ll do the ordering,” he said when Kenny parked. 

“Fine. I’m not picky.” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” 

“Don’t make a poor kid joke,” Kenny said, cutting his eyes over to Cartman’s. His lips were visibly shiny and he looked scared. Kenny enjoyed this look on him, suddenly, though he still couldn’t entirely shake his sense of pity. “You don’t want me on your bad side right now,” he warned.

Cartman snorted and mumbled something almost inaudible that sounded like ‘fine, that’s fine’ as he exited the Jeep. Kenny climbed out, straightened his hair, and found that his anxiety had lessened significantly. Doing the driving and staying sober while Cartman slumped into a barely suppressed panic attack had done wonders for his confidence. He was now simply looking forward to seeing Butters, and when he spotted him on the restaurant’s busy front porch, leaning against the bannister and sipping from some sort of fruity cocktail, he beamed and waved. He was expecting the sort of easy grin he’d gotten from Butters on the beach that morning, maybe even another exuberant hug, but Cartman’s presence prevented that. Butters looked grim and serious as they approached, and he stood up a little straighter, holding his drink with two hands. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Butters said, keeping his eyes on Cartman while Kenny climbed the stairs to the porch. “You really are here.” 

Cartman stood at the bottom of the stairs looking petulant. After a few seconds of silence, Kenny began to fear Cartman was going to drop to his knees and have a Stanley Kowalski moment.

“What’s that you’re drinking?” Cartman asked. Butters rolled his eyes. 

“It’s the Cloud 9,” he said. 

“Oh, yeah, those are pretty good.” 

Butters sighed and looked directly at Kenny for the first time since they’d arrived. When he smiled it was a little shy and almost secretive, as if he was saying hello to Kenny in some other, better language. Kenny grinned back, elated. Butters was wearing a pale blue t-shirt and a pair of smallish white shorts that would have earned him some long stares back in South Park. He looked amazing: squeezable, sun-kissed, maybe a little tipsy. Kenny was surprised Cartman hadn’t showered him with compliments yet. 

“Try it?” Butters said to Kenny, holding out the drink. It was good, though a little heavy on the coconut. Kenny passed it back, nodding in approval and ready to taste anything else Butters wanted to share. Cartman had made his way to the hostess stand and was loudly demanding to be seated on the porch, but not too close to some bushes that apparently attracted mosquitoes. Kenny had already been bitten twice on the arm, but he didn’t care. Butters was here, the crowd at the restaurant was buzzing and lively, and the night was young.

“Has Eric been drinking?” Butters asked, whispering. Kenny nodded. 

“Just a few mai tais,” he said, and he felt like his nine-year-old self yet again, defending his parents when they overdid it. “I drove,” he added, and Butters raised his eyebrows.

“That’s good. I’m surprised he let you. He’s so particular about that, usually. Here, have some more of this. It’s goin’ right to my head.” 

Kenny took another big drink of coconut-laced rum, holding Butters’ gaze over the rim of the glass. Butters was suppressing an impish smile, and Kenny felt the drink begin to go to his head, too. He was relieved when hostess appeared with Cartman at her side and informed them that their table was ready. Kenny needed to sit down; he felt a little dizzy from the circumstances alone, and from the long look Butters had given him while he drank.

“Do you still have that rice ale?” Cartman asked the hostess, snatching a menu from her as they took their seats. “The Japanese shit, starts with an H?”

“Ah, I think so?” She peered at the menu along with him. “Yep, there it is--”

“Well, I’ll have one of those. I know you’re not the waitress, but tell her for me. Also tell her this is a special occasion.” He eyed Butters, then Kenny. They were both sitting across from him. Cartman took up the other half of the table almost fully on his own. “It’s our anniversary,” Cartman said.

“I will be sure to let your waiter know,” the hostess said. “Alan will be taking care of you tonight.” She hurried away before Cartman could issue further instructions. 

“What the heck are you talking about?” Butters asked. “Whose anniversary is it?”

“Nobody’s,” Cartman said. “You just tell them that, and sometimes they bring you a free dessert. Why are you acting like this is your first rodeo? I do this every time we go out.” 

“Right,” Butters said, tightly. “But that’s when it’s me and you. There are three of us here. What’s she going to think, we’re all together? Celebrating our anniversary as a threesome?” 

Kenny laughed nervously and looked around for the waiter. Now he needed a drink.

“Like I care what the help thinks,” Cartman said. “But only your sick mind would go there, Leopold.” 

“Don’t call me that.” Butters turned to Kenny and flashed that little smile again. This time it made Kenny’s heart sink, because it seemed to be, at least in part, designed to hurt Cartman’s feelings. “The native Hawaiians practiced polyamory,” he said. “In some communities, anyhow.” 

“Oh.” Kenny throat tightened; his tongue felt dry. “I didn’t know that.” 

“Yep, and they were okay with two men being together, too, before the missionaries got here and messed it all up.”

“Citation needed,” Cartman said. 

“I’m a native, Eric! I know what I’m talking about.” 

“Butters, Jesus Christ, you’re thirty years old. It’s not cute to pretend you’re a native Hawaiian anymore, okay? Your ancestors were Aryan, same as mine.” 

“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Eric, and you know I don’t like it when you use that word!”

“What word? Aryan?”

“Yes! It’s creepy. Don’t call me that just ‘cause I’m blond. Where were your ancestors from?” he asked, turning abruptly to Kenny. 

“Uh. Ireland.” 

“Fucking duh,” Cartman said, looking at Butters. They glared at each other, and Kenny searched desperately for the waiter, feeling like he was at the McCormick family dinner table and somebody was about to flip it in rage. A heavy silence descended over the table and persisted until the waiter arrived. Kenny ordered a cocktail with tequila, abandoning his plan to stay sharp. Butters asked for a glass of wine, and Cartman ordered four small plates of food. Kenny was surprised that he willingly patronized tapas restaurants. He had expected a steakhouse, or at least a traditional seafood joint with complimentary bread basket refills.

“Just wait till you try this cheese that comes with honeycomb,” Cartman said to Kenny, rubbing his hands together. Despite the hateful stare Butters was giving him, Cartman’s nerves seemed to have eased up, maybe because he had gulped down half his beer as soon as it arrived. “It’s their specialty,” he said when Kenny just stared at him, trying to envision how honeycomb would be consumed with cheese. “They have their own beehives and everything.” 

“It is very good,” Butters said. “But the stuffed dates are my favorite.”

“I ordered the dates,” Cartman said, defensively. Butters shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said. “I noticed. Thank you.” 

“So what have you been up to since you got here?” Kenny asked when silence descended again, Cartman and Butters both staring at each other like they were ready for a physical fight. Butters turned his gaze to Kenny slowly and blinked a few times. 

“Oh,” he said. “Well, just reading on the beach, hanging out with my friends, that sort of thing.” 

“Friends,” Cartman muttered. “Those old fucks give me the creeps.” 

“Yes, I’m aware!”

“Dude,” Kenny said, and he held up his hand when Cartman looked at him. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed. I’m great!” 

“This is how Eric unwinds,” Butters said. “He talks a big game about how he’s better than everybody else. Well, guess what, mister? My friends on Kauai don’t like you much, either.” 

“Ha! Why, because you’re spreading lies about me?”

“Lies? Heck no, what are you talking about?”

“What am I-- You told Kenny I cheated! That’s right.” Cartman smiled when Butters gave Kenny a betrayed look. “He reports to me now, understand?”

“Cartman, shut up,” Kenny said. “I-- I didn’t realize it was-- A secret?” he said to Butters.

“Oh, it’s not a secret. Eric knows what he did.” 

“You’re full of shit!” Cartman said, and the waitress who’d been approaching with some of their small plates paused in mid-step.

“Do you want me to leave right now?” Butters asked, leaning over the table. “You’re lucky I’m even willing to see you!” 

“Guys,” Kenny said, and they both turned their angry looks on him. “Um, look. Our food is here.” 

Cartman busied himself with eating as soon as the plates hit the table, and Butters glumly reached for the dates. Kenny tried the honeycomb and cheese first, and he was a little disappointed to realize that it was incredibly delicious. Cartman had good taste in certain things. 

“You have to come down to the south to have dinner with me at Bev and Sean’s in Poipu,” Butters said when their initial plates were cleared and a second round had been ordered. He was speaking only to Kenny, it seemed, and he placed his hand on Kenny’s wrist to emphasize this. “Sometime soon,” he said. “Before they leave for Maui. They’re the ones I’m staying with down there, and I think you’d really like them.”

“Like hell he would!” Cartman said. “Kenny doesn’t like rich fucks who don’t need to work. Why would he?”

“Kenny doesn’t discriminate based on economic circumstances,” Butters said, his hand closing around Kenny’s wrist. “Isn’t that right?” 

“I guess,” Kenny said. He fully anticipated disliking Bev and Sean, if they were anything like the people who had hosted him and Butters as kids. “Anyway, yeah, I’d come to dinner.” 

“I suppose I’m not invited,” Cartman said. He didn’t seem upset about this, and actually seemed to be enjoying the dinner overall, leaning back to smirk at Butters and resting his second beer on his stomach. Butters shrugged. 

“They don’t know I left you,” he said. “Or why.” 

“Really!” Cartman looked genuinely surprised. “So what, they just think you’re paying them a social call and I got stuck at home?”

“I told them you were too busy with work to come along. Which is pretty ironic, since that’s what you told me when you were really off doing god knows what.” 

“Who the hell do you think I was cheating with?” Cartman asked. “Where’s your evidence?”

“My evidence is that you were lying about your whereabouts.” 

“So you just leave town without saying shit to me? After all these years, that’s how it goes down?”

“I was distraught, Eric! And I left you a note!” 

Kenny hadn’t expected them to get into this right away. He felt like they were both calmer about it than he could manage to be, and he ordered a glass of wine when the waiter returned, though he didn’t really like the stuff. It seemed like a gesture of solidarity with Butters, though his glass was still mostly full. 

When more small plates arrived, the subject of Cartman’s alleged affair was dropped as easily as it had been broached. Kenny hadn’t seen much of Cartman and Butters as a couple over the years, and though this probably wasn’t business as usual, he was surprised by how readily Butters stood up to Cartman. He had always imagined Butters as a victim of his own bad choices, which he supposed wasn’t giving him enough credit. 

“You been watching the Series?” Cartman asked at one point. 

“Huh?” Butters said. 

“The World Series! Have you been watching?”

“No.” Butters frowned. “Are the Rockies in it this year?”

“The Rock-- the fucking Rockies? Hell no! It’s the Giants and the Royals. My money’s on the Giants.” 

Butters groaned. “Literally?” 

“Yes, I’m literally betting on sports,” Cartman said. “Is that a crime?”

“Well, yeah!” 

“I meant morally. You know I don’t abide by federal law.” 

“Yeah, I know that.” 

“You should come over and watch the game with us tomorrow,” Kenny said. He needed Butters to be with them every day now that they had made contact; the idea of returning to awkward afternoons with Cartman was too depressing.  

“That’s a good idea,” Cartman said. “You know-- We’re staying at the old condo.” 

“Kenny told me.” Butters sighed and looked up from his plate. “It makes me a little sad, being there.” 

“Well, then don’t come,” Cartman said, and for the first time all evening he seemed hurt, scowling as he chugged from his beer. 

“No, I’ll come,” Butters said, speaking softly. “I-- I am nostalgic about that little condo. It’s a special place.” 

“Kenny’s sleeping on the opium bed.” 

“I figured.” Butters smirked. “I didn’t assume he was in bed with you, Eric.” 

Cartman made a disapproving sound and Kenny blurted out an unconvincing laugh. Butters winked at him when Cartman wasn’t looking. Kenny wasn’t sure what the wink was supposed to signify, but he appreciated it.

“I hear we’re celebrating an anniversary tonight?” the waiter said toward the end of the meal, when the last of the plates had been cleared. Kenny had stopped keeping track of prices, but they’d finished 15 small plates, and by his rough calculations this dinner would cost around two hundred dollars, before tip. 

“That’s right,” Cartman said. “And we’re frequent customers, too.” 

“I’m a native Kauaian,” Butters said, smiling up at the waiter. 

“May we honor your special occasion by bringing you a complimentary dessert of your choice?” 

Butters and Cartman exchanged a victorious smile upon hearing this. Kenny reached for his second glass of wine. 

“We’ll take the German chocolate cake,” Cartman said. “With the cherry ice cream, not the coconut.” 

“Excellent choice, sir.” 

Kenny stared out at the view of the dark parking lot, hoping that one of them would notice he was beginning to feel like a third wheel. It had been raining steadily since they started eating, and it was beautiful against the hibiscus that lined this side of the porch: romantic, the kind of nighttime rainfall that brought to mind sex and cuddling. When Kenny felt a hand on his knee he froze, thinking it was Cartman giving him some kind of signal to make himself scarce. But it wasn’t Cartman. Butters was touching him, under the table and just above his knee now, squeezing a little while he listened to Cartman talk about all the local bakeries he wanted to visit. 

“Kilauea is my favorite,” Butters said. “Their passion fruit macaroons are just about my favorite thing in the whole world.” 

He was still looking at Cartman, still touching Kenny. The touch wasn’t entirely sexual, but how could it not be? Kenny ordered a coffee when the waiter came back with their cake, feeling bleary and wanting to sober up. He couldn’t stop imagining the scene that would unfold if he just leaned over and licked Butters’ neck, mouthed at his throat, felt the heat of Butters’ pulse against his tongue. He wondered if Butters’ heart was beating fast, too. 

Cartman ate more than half of the cake himself. Kenny could hardly taste it, with Butters’ hand still on his leg and creeping up toward his thigh very slowly. 

“Are you sick or something?” Cartman asked when he looked at Kenny. 

“No. Just thinking about how, uh. Expensive this all was.” 

“Oh, dang,” Butters said. “I’ll treat.”

“Like hell you will.” Cartman dug out his wallet. “This was my event. I’m paying.”

“Your event?” Butters scoffed, but when the check came he allowed Cartman to hand his credit card over. Kenny spent the next five minutes praying it wouldn’t be declined, both because he didn’t want to have to pay for any of this himself and because it would be brutal to see Cartman humiliated that way while his estranged boyfriend’s hand was inching higher and higher up the inside of Kenny’s thigh under the table. He let out his breath when the check was returned with a slip for Cartman to sign. 

“Give him a good tip,” Butters said, and then, to Kenny, “Eric can be very stingy with gratuities.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Eric said. “My mom lived off tips when she was pregnant with me. I haven’t forgotten! I just expect great service.” He looked at Kenny and frowned. “That’s all.” 

“I thought the service tonight was great,” Kenny said. 

“Me too! That’s why I’m gonna tip well! Jesus, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Butters asked.

“I don’t know. You both look stoned or something.” 

“I’m not stoned,” Butters said. He looked at Kenny and smiled, squeezing the middle-inside of his thigh under the table. It was at this point that Kenny’s dick started to get hard. “Are you?” Butters asked, and he winked again, in full view of Cartman this time. 

“I’m cool-- I mean, no, I’m not high.” Kenny reached gladly for his coffee when it arrived, and Butters’ hand slid away. It was mostly a relief, but as soon as the heat of that secret touch was gone, Kenny wanted it back again.

The rain had slowed a little but was still coming down when they headed toward their cars, and Cartman rushed through it while Butters took his time. Kenny followed Butters’ lead, lingering at his side while Cartman glowered from the driver’s seat of the Jeep.

“Is he okay to drive?” Butters asked. 

“I think so. He only had two beers with dinner, and lots of food. And I’m kinda-- groggy.” Kenny stopped walking and looked at Butters. His t-shirt had gotten soaked and was clinging to him, revealing stiff nipples. “You okay?” Kenny asked, not sure how else to phrase his real questions, which were Why were you touching my leg? and Would you be interested in touching me elsewhere?

“I’m great,” Butters said. “I’ll come up to the condo tomorrow. What time does the game start?”

“It’s usually the afternoon, around two.” 

“Well, all right then. And you should come down south, really. We’d show you a good time.” 

He winked again before heading to his car, and Kenny was left standing in the middle of the parking lot, disoriented and wondering if he was just invited to join Butters in an orgy featuring his elderly friends. He supposed he was just projecting a kind of grotesque sexual confusion, but the touching under the table had been unmistakable. Butters was either toying with him as revenge for Cartman’s supposed infidelity, or harboring some old feelings for him that had originated here in Kauai. Kenny wanted to believe it was the latter, and that their boyhood closeness had been waiting here for them like a physical thing, a beautifully wrapped present that had matured to perfection and could now be enjoyed. 

“What the hell were you waiting for?” Cartman barked when Kenny climbed into the passenger seat. “Standing there in the rain like a couple of goddamn hippies-- You’re not tracking that shit into my condo.” 

Kenny decided now was not the time to remind Cartman that it wasn’t his condo anymore. He sat back and tried to enjoy the drive home, but Cartman was suddenly in a nasty mood, the roads seemed treacherous while dark and wet, and Kenny was cold against the blast of the Jeep’s air conditioning. He didn’t dare ask for Cartman to turn it down.

“I thought that went well,” he said, confused by Cartman’s grumpiness. 

“Well, yeah,” Cartman said. “He was giving me ‘fuck me’ eyes all night.” 

“He was?” Kenny was almost tempted to ask if Butters had touched Cartman’s knee under the table, too. 

“Ha, didn’t catch that, did you? Well, I’m more versed in the subtle undertones of Butters’ body language, of course. He was practically ready to mount me there at the table. That’s what two weeks of hanging out with dried-up old yuppies will do to a virile young man, I guess. Yeah, it’s pretty much in the bag. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up fucking after the game tomorrow night. Especially if my team wins. He pretends not to like it when I gamble, but when I bring home the fucking bacon? He’s all over that. Butters likes a man of action. He likes to see you play and win.” 

“Okay,” Kenny said. He was half irritated by this, half pitying, and this itchy combination seemed like it would be the theme of the trip. “Well, good luck tomorrow. And thanks for dinner.” 

“You were right to come along,” Cartman said. “Good call. That eased the tension.” 

“Well.” Kenny couldn’t resist. “He was still shouting at you for cheating on him.” 

“Are you kidding me? That’s a great sign! He flies into a fit of jealousy at the mere idea of me with another man.”

Kenny considered asking again what Cartman had actually been doing during the times he’d lied to Butters about his whereabouts, but when he remembered the reaction he’d gotten earlier he decided to refrain. He was tired, looking forward to warming up in the jacuzzi and then crawling into his opium bed. He remembered making vague plans to snorkel at Tunnels with Butters and decided to text him about that once Cartman had gone to bed. 

By the time they reached the condo, a hot shower sounded better than changing into a swimsuit and pulling the cover off the jacuzzi. Kenny kept it quick, and when he returned to his room to dress for bed he dug out his phone and sent Butters a text:

_Tunnels tomorrow?_

He was waiting for a response when Cartman knocked loudly on his door. 

“Ey,” Cartman said. “You awake?”

“Yeah.” Kenny was still naked, and he pulled his towel around his waist, wishing he had locked the door. “Why?”

“I’m gonna watch a movie. You want a nightcap?”

“I’m kinda beat.” 

“C’mon, asshole. I bought you dinner.” 

Kenny was insulted by the implication that this meant he owed Cartman his company, but there was something sincerely sad in his voice, like maybe he didn’t believe all the bullshit he’d spewed on the drive back. Maybe the looks he’d actually noticed were the ones Butters had given Kenny throughout dinner. If that were the case, Kenny realized, he might need to fear for his life.

“I’ve got Star Wars on Blu Ray,” Cartman said. There was something openly pathetic about this, like a dog rolling onto its back to show its belly. Kenny reached for a pair of clean boxers, relenting. “The original trilogy,” Cartman added. 

“I’m coming,” Kenny said. He would be awake for a while anyway, thanks to the coffee, and he didn’t want to sit alone in his room and obsess over the fact that Butters hadn’t yet responded to his text. He pulled a shirt over his boxers and decided not to bother with pants. On the other side of the door, Cartman was wearing a giant Elitch Gardens t-shirt over ratty flannel pants. 

“I found some scotch,” Cartman said, hoisting a bottle that he held by the neck. “The dick who owns this place won’t mind if we sample it, I’m thinking.” 

“Cool,” Kenny said, though he didn’t really feel like drinking more, especially if he was going to get up early to snorkel with Butters. He checked his phone while following Cartman into the kitchen, and accepted a glass of scotch after finding no new texts. “I forgot to call Stan and Kyle,” he said, thinking aloud. Cartman wrinkled his nose.

“What do you need to call them for?” he asked. “You out of money already?”

“Probably close, but I don’t want to ask them for any. I just wanted to tell them, you know, that we met up with Butters and so forth.”

“Ah, so you wanted to gossip about me to Kyle. Come on.” Cartman walked away from the kitchen, toward his bedroom. “We’re watching _Return of the Jedi_ ,” he said. He stopped in the doorway of his bedroom and turned back to Kenny. “Unless you have a problem with that?” 

“It’s fine,” Kenny said. “Is-- Are you getting the DVD from your room, or--?”

“Nah, the Blu Ray player’s in here. The guy who owns it now put it there, and I don’t feel like dragging it out to the living room, so just c’mon. I won’t try to grope you or anything,” he said, scowling when Kenny hesitated. 

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Kenny said, though he had been, sort of.

The only furniture in Cartman’s room was a desk against the wall next to the dresser that housed the flat screen TV, and the bed, which lined the opposite wall and took up most of the room. Cartman climbed onto it and Kenny followed his lead, feeling strange. He threw back his scotch in two swallows. It was the good stuff, probably; he couldn’t really tell. 

“This is what my dad drank,” he said when Cartman poured him a refill. He had brought the bottle with him from the kitchen, and Kenny had the feeling it would be empty by the end of the night, though just thinking that made his head ache. “Of course,” Kenny said after he’d taken another sip, “My dad drank the cheap stuff.” He glanced over at Cartman, waiting for a comment about his family’s lack of class. 

“Jesus,” Cartman said, swirling the scotch in his glass. “Unless my luck changes, I’ll be drinking the fucking cheap stuff from now on.” 

“There are worse things,” Kenny said.

“Yeah, no shit.” Cartman started the movie and slumped back against the pillows on the bed. Kenny was sitting up straight, keeping a good two and a half feet of mattress real estate between him and Cartman. He didn’t really think Cartman would try to come on to him, no matter how drunk or desperate he got, but getting too close to him still seemed dangerous, like the deserved disgrace that had finally caught up to him might be catching. Kenny had had enough of that already.

The movie and the booze provided a good buffer against any resemblance of intimacy or even conversation. They commented on their favorite parts and laughed at R2-D2’s antics like they were kids again. Cartman confessed that he’d always liked the Ewoks, and Kenny agreed. 

“Remember when we shared a body?” Cartman asked toward the end, when they were both slumped against the pillows and nearly asleep. Kenny was so out of it that he thought he was hearing things at first, but when he lifted his head Cartman was looking at him, grinning.

“You-- You seriously remember that?” Kenny wished he hadn’t let Cartman refill his glass four times. If he forgot this in the morning it would be a kind of sick irony, which was what his personal curse tended to specialize in. “You remember that I died?”

“Huh?” Cartman giggled drunkenly and wiped at his mouth. “No, nah, no, it was that game we played, right? Where we told Stan n’Kyle you were a pot roast ghost, or-- something? Yeah, that was rad. You liked that Rob Schneider movie on the airplane. He was, like. A carrot, or something. Fucking weak, dude.”

Cartman fell asleep then, his head lolling back onto the pillows and his mouth dropping open. Kenny wanted to hang on to consciousness, to try to figure out if there was something in that rambling speech that was actually important, but it had become very hard to keep his eyes open. 

His sleep was totally blank at first, unfathomably deep. Dreams followed, but they were indistinct and blurry, like Cartman’s apparent half-memories of the time Kenny had latched onto him after some random death that even he couldn’t now remember. Just before he woke, he understood that neither of them would ever be able to rationally catalog what that had been like. It had been partially wiped from Kenny, too, maybe because it had happened so long ago, or maybe because he didn’t want to remember what it had felt like to be Cartman for a while. 

**

A rooster’s piercing crow woke Kenny at three in the morning. He was surprised that he didn’t have a headache from the scotch, then jarred by Cartman’s mountainous shape beside him. Cartman was facing away from him, snoring softly. _The Return of the Jedi_ menu screen was still cycling on the TV, and Kenny prayed Cartman wouldn’t wake when he flipped it off. When he didn’t, Kenny crept out of the room, glad that he would have at least three hours of sleep in his own bed. He remembered that Butters had never given him confirmation that they would meet for early morning snorkeling and dug out his phone, pausing in mid-stride when he saw that Butters had sent him a message. 

_Can’t wait that long. ;-)_

Kenny didn’t understand what that meant, and he was still puzzling over it when he walked into the guest bedroom and found Butters in his bed, smiling and seemingly naked beneath the sheets. 

“Shut the door,” Butters said, not even whispering. 

“What-- You--” Kenny checked behind him, afraid he’d find Cartman naked and smiling, too. The hallway was dark and empty, and he could still hear Cartman’s snores, faintly. He turned back to Butters, who had the bedsheet draped artfully over him, covering his crotch and not much else. 

“Come here,” Butters said, rolling onto his belly. The sheet slipped down as he did, revealing his bare ass. It was the ass of an angel, cherubic and dusted with the palest and most delicate of hairs, just above the crack. Kenny was hard, and his heart was pounding. “Please?” Butters said, writhing. “I need you.” 

“How-- How did you get here? How did you get in?” Kenny was whispering, and he shut the door behind him, quietly, as he asked these questions. His dick was indifferent to the answers, already straining against his boxers.

“The guy who bought the condo from us never changed the entry code,” Butters said. The word ‘entry’ alone made Kenny step closer to the bed, though everything about this was insane. He hadn’t had sex in six months, and here was with the boy of his teenage fantasies in his bed, now fully grown and rolling around like not being fucked by Kenny was putting him in physical pain. “I need you, Ken,” Butters said, still writhing like his whole body was an itch that needed scratching. “You know this is right. Please, don’t you feel it, too?”

“What about Cartman?” 

“He wasn’t faithful to me. Why can’t I have a little fun?” 

“But-- He’ll hear us. He’ll kill us.” 

“Nah.” Butters grinned and sat up, the sheet pooling in his lap. “Being a native Kauaian, I got magical powers here, see? Eric won’t wake up. Me and you are in our own little world for now, understand?”

“I’m dreaming,” Kenny said. He looked down at his hands. They seemed real enough, but when he looked up at Butters he was smiling and nodding in confirmation. 

“It’s no regular old dream, though. It’s a special, erotic island dream. I’ve sent my Kauaian spirit here to be with yours for the night, body and soul. It’ll feel so real, Kenny. Come over here, I’ll show you.” 

“Have you done this before?” Kenny asked, not quite believing him. He was pretty sure he was awake, at least in some sense; he could feel the cold floor tiles against his feet, and the blood pumping in the head of his dick. 

“I’ve never been successful at doing it before now,” Butters said. He spread his legs beneath the sheet, slowly, showing Kenny the outline of his erection. “Because my soul mate hasn’t been back to the island since I learned how to project my erotic soul,” he said, casting his gaze down shyly.

“I’m your soul mate?” Kenny felt like he was being toyed with, either by Butters’ projected consciousness or his own subconscious, but he was still undeniably aroused. “You really believe that?”

“I think so,” Butters said. “It’s felt wrong for a while now, back at home and even when I got here-- I hadn’t felt excited the way I did when I saw you on the beach in a real long time. And not just excited, but sort of like I was coming home, when you held me there on the shore. Like that was something I’d been destined to do for a long time, and it was finally happening.” 

“I know,” Kenny said. “I felt that, too, but. Cartman-- You don’t love him anymore?”

Butters groaned and flung the sheet away, revealing his dick. 

“I don’t want to talk about Eric right now,” he said, stroking himself. “Kenny, please. Take care of me! I know you want to.” 

“This doesn’t even sound like you,” Kenny said, staring while Butters fondled his balls invitingly. He was blond down there, too, and his pubes looked fluffy. “Jesus Christ, Butters.” 

“You don’t know what I sound like when I want to make love!” Butters said. “You think I got anywhere with Eric by being subtle?”

“I don’t think it would really go like this,” Kenny said, but he took off his shirt anyway. 

“What wouldn’t go like this?” Butters asked.

“Me and you together.” Kenny took off his boxers and showed Butters his dick. He felt self-conscious about how big and sort of blunt it was, which was something that always happened in real life. He also felt a little bit cold; Cartman kept the air conditioning too low. Butters was staring at his dick, smiling faintly. 

“My goodness,” he said.

“People either love it or they hate it,” Kenny said, holding onto himself and softening a little. “In my experience.” 

“Did your ex-wife love it or hate it?”

“That’s not even the kind of question Butters would ask.” 

“Geez, Kenny, you sure are presumptuous when it comes to me. Come closer, okay? Don’t you want to see if touching me feels real?”

“I think I’m afraid it will.” Kenny stood beside the bed, naked. Butters was in arm’s reach, still tickling his fingertips over his balls and making little half-swallowed sounds, flexing his hips upward. His dick was maybe seven inches long at full hardness, cut and cute, and Kenny wanted to suck him off, fuck him, hold him all night long and forget Cartman in the next room, but something was wrong about this, even as a dream. “Do you really care about me?” Kenny asked. “Or do you just want to get off? Or piss Cartman off?”

Butters moaned and sat up on his knees, reaching for Kenny. His hands were warm on Kenny’s hips, then sliding up his arms, and on Kenny’s cheeks when he allowed Butters to draw him down to the bed. 

“‘Course I care about you,” Butters said, speaking softly now. “Don’t you know I had a big crush on you back then? Don’t you remember me sleeping on your lap on the plane ride home?”

“Yeah, I remember. But--”

“Kauai ain’t just my native land, it’s our special place. This does feel like some kind of big anniversary, doesn’t it? For me and you?” 

Kenny swooped in to kiss Butters then, because he wanted badly for that to be real, at least. It felt real to him, and very true, and Butters’ lips did, too, soft and warm, his tongue a little overeager until Kenny’s soothed against it and calmed him into slower kissing, both of them sinking onto the bed. Kenny felt his weight shifting, muscles liquefying under Butters’ ministrations, and he could taste that chocolate cake on Butters’ tongue.

“Listen,” Kenny said, cupping Butters’ cheek. “I want this to be real. Will you remember that when you wake up?”

“Oh, Ken, I already felt this way when we were at that restaurant, and on the beach. You need me, too, I know.” 

“Do you remember me dying?” Kenny asked, pretty sure he wouldn’t get a real answer to this question either. Butters frowned and touched Kenny’s hair, smoothing it down. 

“Don’t say things like that, mister. You can’t die.”

Butters didn’t seem to understand the ironic truth of that statement, and Kenny was tired of waiting, his cock hard on Butters’ hip and leaking precome with every twitch of Butters’ body against his. They kissed again, and Kenny mouthed at Butters’ neck the way he’d wanted to at the restaurant. Butters was fragrant there, pheromone-heavy, and Kenny felt a little drugged. 

“Do we need lube?” he asked. Butters grinned. 

“Nah,” he said. “I got myself ready for you.”

“It’s-- Have you had anything this big before?”

“Aw, Kenny, don’t call your cock a thing. It’s a part of you, and it’s beautiful!” 

“Um. No, I meant-- I’m pretty sure Cartman isn’t this big, so. Are you sure I should just slide in?”

“My astral projection can take your dick just fine, thanks for asking.” 

To Kenny's dismay, things got progressively less intense and vivid from then on. There was warmth, friction, kissing, but it began to blur together into what felt more like a memory of these sensations than something that was actively happening in a parallel dimension. Butters' little moans and gasps at least came through clearly, and those alone were enough to make Kenny come, ostensibly inside him.

Kenny was awakened either by the final powerful spurt of his orgasm or the sound of a rooster crowing outside, so close to their lanai that it might has well have been perched on the end of the bed. This wasn’t the opium bed in the guest room: he was still in Cartman’s room, lying on his back with a sinking hardon and boxers full of come. Dawn was creeping into the sky outside, and, as promised by the Butters in his dream, Kenny somehow had no hangover. He glanced over at Cartman. He was well on his own side of the bed, facing away from Kenny and snoring in random sputters. Someone had turned _Return of the Jedi_ off, and the TV, too. 

Creeping out of Cartman’s room for what felt like a second time was unnerving, and Kenny was afraid that he still wasn’t fully awake as he made his way back to the guest room. He had remembered to grab his phone from Cartman’s bedside table, but he was afraid to check it, fearing another text from Butters that would start the whole thing over again. It had been pleasureable, certainly, not a bad dream, but Kenny had a particular dislike of Groundhog Day scenarios and didn’t want to repeat the experience of not knowing if he was talking to the real Butters, the erotically projected Butters, or a twisted fantasy conjured by his own subconscious. He was startled when he looked down and saw a new text from Butters, and he peeked into the guest room before opening it. The room was empty, lights off, the bed still made. The text from Butters was an invitation to meet him at Tunnels for snorkeling in just under two hours. 

_How’s 7am for you?_ Butters had asked. He’d sent the text just before 3 AM.

 _Fine_ , Kenny sent back. _Sorry for the delayed response. See you then_.

Hearing from Butters in what seemed to be reality was a relief, and so was the prospect of seeing him soon, though Kenny was exhausted and felt like he hadn’t actually slept at all. At least he would be able to see the real Butters in the light of day, after that unsettling dream. Kenny felt fuzzy-headed and thought about showering again, but decided to nap for an hour instead. He set his phone alarm and passed out in the opium bed, newly disturbed that he had dreamed himself to orgasm with Cartman sleeping beside him. 

This time he slept without dreaming, and he was not prepared to wake when his phone alarm jolted him from sleep with its deceptively gentle chimes. He put on a bathing suit in a kind of fugue state, and went to the fridge to get something that would wake him up enough for the drive up north. He settled for one of Cartman’s sodas and chugged from the can on the way to the car, wondering if he should text Cartman to let him know where he’d gone. Whether or not he left word with Cartman seemed significant, and he stalled on making a decision, fairly certain that Cartman wouldn’t wake up for hours anyway. The day was overcast and warm already, the sun recently risen and dulled to a grayish glow by the blanket of clouds overhead. It didn’t seem like great snorkeling weather, but Kenny felt prepared to plunge into the mercurial sea this time around. It seemed like something that might cleanse him of the lingering effects of that dream about Butters. 

As promised, the parking lot for Tunnels Beach was both tiny and hard to spot from the road, and Kenny had to turn around when his GPS informed him that he’d passed it. When he pulled in he found Butters standing near his car, holding a place for Kenny to park. 

“You got the last spot!” Butters said when Kenny climbed out of the Jeep. Butters seemed spritely and well-rested, and Kenny decided not to mention the dream. In the light of day, walking toward the beach with Butters at his side, it seemed insane to consider it anything but a wet dream that had unfortunately happened in Cartman’s bed. 

“How’d you sleep?” Kenny asked when they were sitting on the beach, putting on the snorkel gear that Butters had brought. 

“Just fine,” Butters said. He smiled easily, and there was nothing in his expression that indicated he’d had a dream that matched or resembled the events of Kenny’s. “How ‘bout you? That opium bed was always a little too firm for me.” 

“It was okay,” Kenny said. “Cartman made me watch a movie with him when we got back.” 

“Oh yeah? That doesn’t surprise me. Eric hates being alone.” 

“Yeah. Hey, Butters?”

“Hmm?”

“You, um. Yesterday, last night, at dinner-- Am I imagining things, or were you touching my, uh, leg? Under the table?”

Butters sighed and looked out at the ocean. He had his snorkel mask pushed up onto his head, the breathing tube dangling against his cheek. Kenny felt bad for asking so bluntly, though he felt like he deserved an answer.

“Sorry about that,” Butters said. “I think I had too much to drink last night.” 

“You didn’t seem drunk. But, um. You don’t need to apologize. I liked it, just. I’m wondering what’s up.” It was the closest he was willing to come to saying _Please don’t use me as revenge against Cartman, not me, not now._

“You liked it?” Butters’ voice was small, and he peeked at Kenny before turning toward the ocean again. “Oh, well. Me too.” 

They sat there in silence for a while, letting that sink in. Kenny felt so strangely, inexplicably close to Butters that he almost blurted something out about the dream he’d had. 

“I don’t want to complicate things between you and Cartman,” Kenny said, though he did. “If now’s not the right time-- Maybe you need to be alone for a while?”

“Gosh, I don’t think so.” Butters gave Kenny a fretful look. “Do you think I should be alone?”

“No, no, just. I don’t know, I’m confused.”

“Me too. But I liked it last night. Touching you, and, well. I don’t want to be a hypocrite, but it’s not like me and Eric are married, and it’s not like he’s been faithful, and I just--” Butters shook his head and reached for his flippers. “Maybe we should snorkel for a while,” he said. “The majesty of the ocean might clear things up a little.” 

“Sure,” Kenny said, doubtfully. He grabbed his fins and followed Butters to the water line. There was only one other group on the beach, four people with folding chairs who had diving tanks and fishing spears. He could see the reef from the shore, dotted under the water like huge mushrooms. Butters went in first, and Kenny was able to glide in behind him a bit more gracefully than he had the day before. This time he saw fish right away, multicolored and sort of adorably serious as they picked at the reef, making a soft sort of munching noise that was audible once Kenny got close enough. A coronet fish swam right past his snorkel mask, darting into deeper waters. He kept up with Butters, who was moving diagonally over the reef, heading toward the deeper water, too. When they had snorkeled together a boys it had been in a protected reef, and this was more exhilarating but also a little frightening. Kenny had always been wary of the ocean; he felt a sort of primal pull toward its deepest and most secret places whenever he entered it, and sometimes wondered if this had to do with his regeneration powers, as if something inhuman that lurked in the deep was calling to him. He tried not to think about this as they passed over dark gaps between the larger reefs, and he moved over these areas quickly. 

Butters had warned him about the drop off at the edge of the reef, but Kenny wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like to look over and see the ocean floor disappear, suddenly miles down under deeper blue. It unnerved him, and seemed to pull at him like a hungry energy source. He moved away from Butters, who was swimming over the edge fearlessly. When he swam back to the shallower waters he managed to find what he was pretty sure was a rusty-colored octopus sleeping under the shelf of a small outcropping of reef. He turned toward Butters, wanting his opinion on whether or not this was a legitimate octopus or just an octopus-looking rock. Butters was pointing to something else, close to the drop off: turtles, one and then two, suddenly three. Kenny got caught up in the current and ended up nearly crashing into a few of them, sailing past two young turtles as an older, larger one seemed to give him a disapproving look.   

“It’s getting a little choppy over here!” Butters called when Kenny poked his head out of the water, trying to get his bearings. He couldn’t believe how far down the beach they’d gone. “You want to get out?” 

“Yeah,” Kenny said. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been in, but he was beginning to tire and felt like they were approaching dangerous waters. He wasn’t sure if the currents that were tugging at him were the kind that could carry you out to sea in seconds, but it was always safer to assume that they were, and he hated the thought of Cartman and Butters bonding on Kauai following his untimely death. He pulled his mask and snorkel back down and swam behind Butters, back toward the beach, skimming very close over some of the reef on the way out. 

It was always exhilarating to leave the ocean after an encounter with it that had at least seemed a bit treacherous, and Kenny and Butters were both beaming as they dropped onto the sand to pull off their fins, reviewing the fish they had seen and marveling at the amount of turtles that had suddenly appeared. 

“I thought I saw an octopus,” Kenny said. “But it might have been a rock.” 

This made Butters laugh, and he was so fetching when he looked like this: carefree, hair wrecked by seawater, cheeks pink. Kenny was tempted to lean over and kiss him, in part because he still felt as if they had already had sex, the night before, in an alternate but concrete dimension. 

“I’ve got a volunteer shift at the garden in an hour,” Butters said when they were walking back toward the spot on the beach where they’d left their towels. “You, um, got any plans today, with Eric?”

“No,” Kenny said. “Other than watching the baseball game with you later.” 

“Oh, right! Well, how about coming with me to the garden? I just kind of wander around and pick up leaves and branches off the trails. It’s nice, real relaxing. We could go back to the condo together, after?”

“That sounds great,” Kenny said. Storm clouds were rolling in, but he didn’t care. He would spend all day in the rain with Butters if he was welcome. “I’ll just, uh. I guess I should text Cartman and let him know where I am.”

“Oh? He doesn’t know you met me this morning?”

“Nah, he’d passed out before I got your text.” 

Butters nodded to himself. Kenny tried to read his expression: concern for Cartman? Annoyance that Kenny was reporting his whereabouts to him? Kenny couldn’t be sure. Despite the intensity of their renewed connection, and the comfortable way Butters sort of bumped into him as they walked, it still felt like there were parts of this situation that Kenny didn’t have full access to. It was unsettling, but also unsurprising. When he climbed back into the Jeep he grabbed his phone from the glove compartment and sent Cartman a text. 

_Hanging out with Butters this morning. We’ll be back before the game starts._

He waited for a response, and assumed Cartman was still asleep when nothing came. 

The botanical garden preserve was on the side of one of the green interior mountains that overlooked the ocean. Kenny followed Butters up a muddy driveway to the parking lot, which was also unpaved. There was a small gift shop beside it, and Butters stopped in to let the management know that he’d arrived. Kenny loitered outside, observing some chickens that were roosting nearby. He checked his phone, a bit fearful of having some dickish or despairing text from Cartman, but nothing had come. Cartman was probably still asleep. 

“We’re all set,” Butters said, approaching Kenny with some brown paper landscaping bags. “As long as you don’t mind working in the rain.” 

“I don’t.” It was only sprinkling, and it was nice, lending a twinkling, fairy-tale atmosphere to the lush foliage as they ventured away from the gift shop and up the mountain trails. Much of the plant life immediately adjacent to the trails was labeled with signs identifying it by name and pointing out how endangered it was. The information about non-native plants that had choked out most of the more fragile native species was depressing, but Kenny still felt light-hearted as they ascended the trail, and he tried to follow Butters’ lead in determining which leaves and sticks needed collecting and which should be left where they were.

“So,” Kenny said when they were sheltering under some huge palms that hung over the trail. The rain had intensified, but Butters seemed confident that it would pass quickly. “Did being in the ocean clarify your, uh, thoughts?” Kenny asked. It was an awkward question to pose while they were huddled together under a plant, but he needed to know sooner rather than later if Butters regretted pawing him under the table the night before. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Butters said. “I still feel all muddled. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing? All I know is I’m glad you’re here, and--” He stopped there and turned to peer up at Kenny. There was rainwater dripping from his hair and down the line of his jaw, and he was wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue, then pressing them together. “You could kiss me,” Butters said, whispering this when Kenny was already halfway there, close enough to feel Butters’ breath against his lips.

Kenny kept the kiss chaste, his hand cupping Butters’ cheek and his lips closed. Butters blinked rapidly when they pulled apart, maybe just from the rain that was dripping from his bangs. A chicken wandered by on the trail, picking through the leaves they had yet to collect. Butters was smiling when Kenny worked up the nerve to look at him again. 

“You’re kissing me like we’re still nine years old,” Butters said.  

“Sorry.” Kenny had already done some pretty advanced kissing prior to that age, but maybe it was best that Butters didn’t know that. 

“No, I like it,” Butters said. “It’s perfect, actually.”

Kenny kissed him again, still sweetly, at the corner of his lips and then on his cheek, his ear. Butters laughed a little and put his hands on Kenny’s hips, nudging him closer. The rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped. 

“We should get back to it,” Butters said. He was still whispering, still smiling. He returned to the path and picked up a mottled leaf, but instead of putting it in the landscaping bag he sighed and hugged it to his chest. “Look,” he said, holding it out toward Kenny. “It’s shaped like a heart.” 

“Butters,” Kenny said. He wasn’t sure what to say next, or what to do: slip the leaf into his pocket? Draw Butters back into the foliage and kiss him again? Resume the landscaping work that was oddly calming so far? “What’s going on?” he asked, knowing Butters wouldn’t have an answer. Butters shrugged. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s anything bad.” 

“Well, yeah, but then there’s Cartman.” Kenny resisted the temptation to check his phone; he would have felt it buzz against his thigh if he’d gotten a new message. 

“You let me worry about old Eric,” Butters said. “He’s my responsibility, after all. You don’t have to think about his feelings all the time. He would never bother to think about yours!” 

Butters seemed to be talking to himself. Kenny didn’t contradict him, just bent down to find something to pick up. He felt a little floaty, a little ill, and realized as they made their way down the other side of the trail that he hadn’t eaten anything since that bizarrely paced tapas dinner.

“You hungry at all?” he asked Butters when they were in the gift shop’s tiny bathroom, taking turns to wash their hands. 

“Starved!” Butters said. “How about a Puka Dog?”

“Sure.” Kenny grinned at him in the mirror. It had been their favorite thing to eat on Kauai as kids. “I’m glad they’re still around.”

“Oh, heck yeah, they got even more locations now! We can stop at the one in Hanalei, on the way back to the condo. Do you think, um. Would Eric let me take a shower at the condo, do you think?”

“Of course.” Kenny laughed at the question, then felt bad when Butters wilted a little. “Man, if he’s weird about it, you can always use the guest bathroom shower. I guess that one is ‘mine’ for now.” 

“Sounds good,” Butters said, and Kenny spent the entirety of the drive to Hanalei imagining what it would be like to shower with Butters. He had fetishized hot water since childhood, and shower sex was one of his favorite fantasies, but he couldn’t rid himself of the corresponding mental image of Cartman sulking out on the condo’s couch while this unlikely shower sex happened, sipping a mai tai and muttering under his breath. 

“Should we get one for Cartman?” Kenny asked when they were in line at Puka Dog, considering their topping options. 

“Nah,” Butters said. “They don’t travel well.” 

Kenny thought this was kind of cruel, and he wasn’t sure if he was pleased by Butters’ lack of concern for Cartman’s lunch or worried, because it was unlike him, and if he was harboring petty bitterness that meant he still cared about Cartman. Kenny was aware that it was pretty much impossible, at this stage, for Butters not to still care about Cartman, but he was still over-vigilant for hints of what he already knew. He copied Butters’ Puka Dog order: polish sausage with hot sauce, pineapple relish and lilikoi mustard. They found a table in the main throughway of the shopping center and leaned under its little umbrella when the rain started up again. 

“Damn,” Kenny said, wishing he’d ordered two hot dogs. “I didn’t forget how good these were, but damn. Really good.” He made himself shut up, embarrassed by his tendency to be almost emotional about food, even now that he was no longer accustomed to going hungry. 

“Watching you eat that hot dog is giving me some ideas,” Butters said. Kenny almost choked on what was sort of a laugh, sort of a spit take. “Sorry,” Butters said, coloring. “I shouldn’a said that.” 

“It’s fine.” Kenny cleared his throat, drank some lemonade and wiped mustard from the corner of his mouth. “I mean. I’d like to--” Blow you? Now he was blushing, too. “Do things,” he said, quietly. “Me and you. I had a dream last night, actually--” He made himself shut up and took another bite of his hot dog, avoiding Butters’ curious stare. 

“Oh, gosh,” Butters said. “That’s real flattering, Kenny.” 

Kenny was a little disappointed that Butters didn’t announce with excitement that he had also enjoyed a sex dream about the two of them the night before, but only a little. He felt unbalanced on the way to the Jeep, as if he was enjoying a carnival ride but at the same time wondering when he would be allowed off of it, and how sick from overstimulation he might become before that happened. 

Back at the condo, Kenny caught himself leading the way along the winding, landscaped path, and he wanted to apologize when he remembered that Butters was much more familiar with this place than he was. Butters seemed distracted, even a little frightened when Kenny punched the entry code into the panel by the door.

“I guess I could have let you do it,” Kenny said, thinking of his dream. “If, uh. It’s the same code you guys used to use?”

“Oh-- No, I don’t think so.” Butters was distracted again as they entered the foyer, and he peered around fretfully at the decor. Kenny was a little concerned when Cartman was nowhere to be found, but when he walked into the living room he spotted him: on the lanai out back, sitting in the hot tub like an oversized toad who occupied the space of an entire pond. He was frowning when Kenny opened the screen door and poked his head out. 

“Did you get my text?” Kenny asked. 

“Yeah,” Cartman said. “What the fuck?” 

“What-- do you mean?”

“What do I mean? Fuck you, that’s what I mean! You don’t get to spend time with him without me there! That was stage one, dumb ass, now we’re in stage two--”

“All right!” Kenny said, resisting the urge to say that Cartman couldn’t tell him what to do. In a sense, he could; Kenny was staying here on Cartman’s invitation, which could be revoked at any time. He considered what would happen next, if it was: Butters might invite him to stay with his friends down south. 

“Where the hell is Butters?” Cartman asked. “I thought you said you were bringing him?”

“He’s in the shower. I said he could use mine.” 

“Yours? What? Why the fuck is he showering? What did you do to him?” Cartman’s voice was approaching a roar, but he hadn’t budged from his spot at the center of the hot tub. 

“I didn’t do anything to him.” It didn’t occur to Kenny that this was a lie until he had already said it: they had kissed. That was real now, a thing that had actually happened. “We went snorkeling and then volunteered at the botanical garden. I’m gonna take a shower after him, and then we can watch the game and have some lunch.” He decided not to mention the Puka Dogs they had already eaten, and hoped that Butters would follow his lead. “Okay?” he said when Cartman just sat there glowering. 

“Fine,” Cartman said, and he hoisted himself up with a grunt. “You may want to avert your eyes,” he said, already halfway out of the water. “I’m nude.” 

“Of course you are.” Kenny slipped into the condo and headed straight for his room.

When he emerged, Butters was standing in the foyer near his door, wearing nothing but a towel. Kenny was thrown by this, mostly because the shock of it resembled the dream he’d had the night before. Cartman was in the kitchen, also in nothing but a towel, peering into the fridge. 

“Could I borrow some dry clothes?” Butters asked, quietly, as if he was hoping Cartman wouldn’t notice him yet. Cartman jerked his head around the fridge door and glared. 

“I brought some of your shit from home,” Cartman said. “Thought you might have run out of clothes, since you left me like a goddamn bandit in the middle of the night and only took one bag.” 

“I appreciate that,” Butters said, tightly. “But I don’t know if I want to wear whatever you picked out.” 

“Huh?” Cartman slammed the fridge shut. “Why not?”

“Because you’re fussy about what you like me to wear and I don’t always feel it’s appropriate.” 

“Oh, Jesus, Butters, I didn’t pack your fucking fetish gear! I’m talking about t-shirts, shorts. Normal shit!” 

“Why don’t you go get dressed,” Kenny said to Cartman, trying to make his voice a soothing presence as the tension in the room ratcheted up. “And when you’re dressed, you can bring Butters something to wear.” 

“Right, pff, so he’s just going to hang out with you, naked, until that happens?”

“So what if I do?” Butters asked. “You’ve been hanging out naked with all manner of folks behind my back, I daresay.” 

“You’re full of shit!” Cartman said, stomping toward them. It was not a flattering look, and Kenny wanted to get Cartman dressed for his own sake as much to spare himself the sight of Cartman’s nipples. “I’ll be right back,” Cartman said, pointing at Butters and then at Kenny, his towel precariously clutched around him with his other hand. “And you’d better not be wearing Kenny’s clothes when I return.” 

“Why the hell not?” Butters asked, and he laughed. “I can wear Kenny’s clothes if I want to.”

“I forbid it!” Cartman was getting red in the face; Kenny was beginning to fear a heart attack, or, at the very least, the accidental release of that towel. “I forbid it, Butters, and this is still my house! I make the rules!”

“It’s not your house, Eric!” Butters’ voice was wavering a little. “We lost it, okay! It’s gone!”

“Like hell it is! We’re fucking standing here, aren’t we? On this fucking Pottery Barn rug that you just had to have shipped from the goddamn mainland!”

“Hey!” Kenny said. They both looked at him, both breathing a little heavily. “Cartman, go get dressed. Bring Butters his clothes. In the meantime, I’m going to take a shower. Okay?”

Cartman looked back and forth between Butters and Kenny, his chest still heaving. He adjusted his towel slightly.

“Fine,” he said. “That’s fine.” He headed toward the master bedroom, walking in a sort of sideways crab shuffle, keeping his eyes on them. “I have egg noodles for lunch,” he said, and Kenny thought of how he’d sounded last night, dangling _The Return of the Jedi_ as if watching it with him would be some kind of prize.

“We already ate,” Butters said. Kenny winced; they’d been so close to sending Cartman off to his room to put on clothes. 

“What?” Cartman looked like he’d just gotten the news that he’d lost another piece of beloved real estate. “When-- Where?”

“I’m still hungry,” Kenny said. “So, uh. I’ll get some water boiling before I hope in the shower. For the noodles.” 

Cartman backed into his doorless bedroom, and Kenny headed into the kitchen as if he was faithful that the events he had suggested would actually take place. He started looking around in the cabinets, hunting for a noodle boiling pot. Butters was still fuming, wandering around the condo’s open living room and harrumphing at the furniture. 

“This is all our stuff,” Butters said. “All the stuff I picked out. He hasn’t changed anything.” 

“The new owner?”

“Yeah. He’s a butthead. He teaches yoga on the beach at the St. Regis and a couple of other fancy hotels.” 

Kenny thought of Stan. He pulled out his phone, and, as if he had summoned them, saw that he had two new texts: one from Stan, and one from Kyle. 

Stan’s read: _Hey dude how’s it going?_

Kyle’s was simply: _???? >:/_

“Remind me to call Stan and Kyle after we eat,” Kenny said. “Kyle is using emoticons. Never a good sign.” 

“How are those two doing, anyway?” Butters asked. He walked into the kitchen and leaned against the breakfast bar, not offering any advice on where Kenny should look for a pot. 

“They’re okay.” Kenny thought about mentioning Kyle’s marriage angst, but it didn’t seem wise. “You don’t happen to know where the pots and pans are kept, do you?”

“Who eats egg noodles in the middle of the day?” Butters asked. “That’s dinnertime food.” 

“Yeah. Well--”

“Right there, to your left. Oh, geez, those are our old pots, too. That doesn’t seem sanitary, does it? Using someone else’s old pots? We did sell this place to him fully furnished.” Butters sighed. “I suppose Eric’s gambled all that cash away by now.” 

“Stop talking shit about me!” Cartman entered the kitchen wearing a navy polo shirt and khaki shorts, barefoot. He thrust a stack of clothes at Butters. “Take this, you ingrate.” 

“What did you bring?” Butters snatched the clothes from him and sorted through them. “Well,” he said, glancing up at Cartman. “I guess this stuff’s okay.”

“I’m not a complete moron. I know what you like to wear in Kauai. You think I never pay attention to anything you do? Ha!” 

“I never said that.” Butters walked into Kenny’s room and closed the door behind him. Cartman snarled in Butters’ direction while Kenny filled the pot he’d found with water. 

“You see what I’ve been dealing with?” Cartman asked, keeping his voice low. “He’s out of control!” 

“Not really, if you were actually cheating on him.” 

“I wasn’t-- Fucking shut up and do your job!”

“My job? What’s that, exactly?” Kenny felt stupid holding the pot of water, suddenly, and like he had been tricked into voluntarily helping Cartman prepare a redundant lunch that he didn’t even want to eat. 

“Your job,” Cartman said, “Is to make me look good in front of Butters.” 

Kenny was going to ask how that was possible, but the question was too insulting, and he didn’t want to get Cartman worked up again. He put the pot on a burner and fired it up. Butters emerged after a few minutes, dressed, and Kenny got a little thrill out of the idea that Butters had been naked in his room, just like in that dream. He imagined Butters sniffing his pillow, which probably hadn’t happened. Butters was wearing a smallish gray t-shirt and a pair of faded green boat shorts that hugged his ass beautifully and made Kenny wonder if Cartman had provided him with clean underwear or if he was going bare. Butters glided past Cartman and came to join Kenny at the stove. 

“I’m gonna put the game on,” Cartman bellowed. “If anyone but me cares.” 

“How about some drinks, too?” Kenny said, desperate for one. “I’m gonna take a shower now-- Cartman, you want to make mai tais?”

“I guess,” Cartman said. He was in the living room, turning up the volume on the pre-game show. “I mean, nobody can make them as good as me, so.” 

“You do make a good mai tai,” Butters said. He sounded annoyed, and had moved into the dining room to fiddle with some decorative bottles of flavored salt that were part of the weird centerpiece. “You think Tyrone would notice if I took these?” he asked. “I never got a chance to pack up the little stuff I did want to keep.”

“Take whatever you want,” Cartman said. “Fuck Tyrone.” 

Kenny was glad to leave them and retreat into the serenity of a hot shower, but after a few minutes he began to worry that they might be reconciling out there, over mai tais and plans to swipe their old things from the condo’s new owner. He dressed in the bathroom and emerged with his hair still wet, peeking into the living room to make sure they weren’t making out. Cartman was on the couch, drinking from a mai tai. Butters was in the kitchen making some kind of sauce for the noodles. 

“This used to be our favorite dinner,” Butters said when Kenny stood beside him. “There’s a mai tai for you,” he said, nodding to it. Kenny was not surprised to find it was very strong. 

“Can I help?” he asked, watching Butters measure out a tablespoon of sesame oil. 

“You can throw the noodles in,” Butters said. “Water’s boiling now.”

“Fuck, are you kidding me!” Cartman screamed, and for a moment Kenny thought this was an objection to him and Butters cooking together. Cartman was looking at the TV, yanking at his hair in agony over some botched play in the game. Butters rolled his eyes when Kenny glanced at him. 

“Eric likes to yell at the players.” 

“My dad did that.” Kenny had enjoyed it, sort of, as a kid. They had watched NASCAR and professional wrestling together, and there was always a lot of shouting. It had felt good to share a common enemy, as opposed to hearing his father shout at his mother or his brother.

They all ended up eating a bowl of noodles when they were finished, despite the trip to Puka Dog. Kenny had a second mai tai and settled onto the couch beside Cartman, the lack of sleep beginning to catch up to him. Butters took a seat in an armchair to their left, twirling noodles around a set of black lacquered chopsticks. Cartman’s team was losing, but his mood wasn’t entirely bad. 

“This just means there’s a game seven tomorrow,” he said when the Giants blew their last chance for a comeback in the ninth. “That ups the stakes,” he said, slurping noodles while he spoke. “Financially, I mean. For me.” 

“We know what you meant,” Butters said. “Do I even want to ask how much you’ll lose if the Giants don’t win?”

“No,” Cartman said, gravely, and they left it at that.

 

**


	3. Chapter 3

When the game ended, it was just a little after four o’clock and Cartman was dozing on the couch. Kenny helped Butters with the dishes, again resenting that he was doing Cartman’s literal dirty work. 

“Should we wake him up and ask him to help?” Kenny asked, already knowing the answer. Butters snorted. 

“Eric grew up spoiled,” he said. “He pretends not to know how to work the laundry machines, and he’s not above breaking a dish to prove that he’s ‘incapable’ of cleaning up.”

“That’s annoying.” 

“Yeah, but our deal used to be that I’d do all this household stuff for Eric in exchange for him bringing home the money, paying the bills, making smart investments and all that. I got my bird feeder business online, but that’s mostly about me expressing myself and my love of birds, you know, it’s never made much of a profit.”

“That’s too bad.” Kenny had stuck one of Butters’ custom bird feeders in his yard in California, and it had not made the trip back with him when Glory threw him out. Butters made these bird feeders by stacking small decorative plates on top of larger ones, gluing an upside-down bud vase to the largest plate, then mounting that on spray-painted rebar. They were meant to look like flowers made out of flatware, and they were cute but not very effective when it came to actually feeding birds; squirrels had mobbed Kenny’s feeder whenever he put seed on it. “Cartman never offered to help you with marketing?” Kenny asked. “Or a better business plan?”

“Naw, he’s not interested in that kind of business. He likes to think of himself as a mover and a shaker, you know, somebody who determines the fates of others. I think that’s how he’d put it, anyway. Real estate always interested him, because he said it felt like was amassing an empire.” 

“Huh.” 

“Yeah.” 

They both turned to look at Cartman. He was still asleep, his hands folded over his belly and his last drink resting in a pool of condensation on marble-topped side table. Kenny wanted to ask what Butters he had seen in Cartman in the first place, way back in middle school or maybe even before that, but he wasn’t sure this was the right time, or that he ever wanted to prompt Butters to relive the good old days with Cartman. Assuming that there had been good old days. Kenny was trying not to think about the mention of Butters having fetish wear, but his mai tai-addled mind kept drifting back there. 

“You want to go for a swim?” Butters asked. 

“In the ocean?”

“No, silly, in the pool! Has Eric showed you where it is yet?”

Kenny didn’t even know the condo complex had a pool. He changed into a bathing suit, and Butters located one of his own in the pile of clothes Cartman had packed for him. Kenny had to admit that bringing Butters his things was kind of thoughtful, for Cartman, if also presumptuous. The sun was just starting to go down when he followed Butters to the pool, and he was glad to see that it was empty when they arrived. It was lagoon-shaped, medium-sized, and adjoined a public barbeque area and changing rooms. Butters went running for the pool like a kid and did a cannonball into the deep end. Kenny’s stomach was a little unsteady, but he did the same when Butters popped out of the water and grinned at him expectantly. 

“Oof,” Kenny said when he surfaced, his gut lurching. “I drank too much.”

“Never finish three drinks that Eric mixed! I shoulda told you that, but I thought maybe you knew. He’s got a hundred pounds on us at least, and his tolerance is something else.” 

“My tolerance is pretty high,” Kenny said. He was wounded by the implication that Cartman was somehow more manly or durable than him, though he knew that Butters hadn’t meant it that way. Kenny was the one who had never quite shaken his instinct to equate the ability to drink more than other men with strength. It had been a point of pride for his father. “It’s not like I’m drunk,” he said. “I just meant-- Rum is kinda hard on my stomach, sometimes--”

“C’mere,” Butters said, swimming backward toward the shallow end. 

Kenny swam after him, cautious about the look on Butters’ face, which was impish verging on devious. By the time he’d reached out for Butters’ outstretched hands, he knew he was being pulled in for a kiss. Butters smiled and hummed against Kenny’s mouth before parting his lips for his tongue. It was like relearning how to kiss, maybe because Kenny had stopped kissing Glory like this months before their divorce, or maybe because this was Butters, and he was so sweet and familiar, though new at the same time. He touched Kenny’s face when they kissed, and guided Kenny’s jaw with his thumbs. Kenny couldn’t stop from wondering whether Butters had kissed Cartman like this, too, sort of wilting into it and directing the pace at the same time. 

“What if he sees?” Kenny asked, looking toward the pool’s closed gate. The path that led from the condo was growing dark as the sun sunk lower, lights coming on along the ground. 

“He won’t see,” Butters said, and Kenny was again reminded of that dream, when Butters had promised that they were in an undetectable alternate dimension. “And if he does, so what?”

“Well, he would violently murder me,” Kenny said. “For one thing.” 

“Nah,” Butters said. 

“Nah?”

“Eric is all talk. Anyway, he would cry. That would be bad. You’re right, I’ll stop kissing you.” 

Butters ducked under the water and swam around Kenny, back into the deep end. For a moment Kenny thought he was upset, feeling rejected, but when he surfaced he gave Kenny a coy smile. 

“It’s just,” Kenny said, swimming to him. “I mean, we can’t just kiss in front of Cartman. He’d lose his mind.” 

“Why are you so concerned about Eric?” Butters swam just out of Kenny’s reach, looking eerily beautiful as the pool lights flicked on underwater, like a nymph who had tempted him into a poisonous lagoon. 

“Aren’t you concerned about him?” Kenny asked after he had considered several answers to that question. 

“Yeah,” Butters said. “But at the same time, I’m tired of worrying about his dang feelings all the time. When did he ever think about mine?” 

“Do you think you ended up with him ‘cause of your dad?” Kenny asked. Maybe he was a little drunk. Butters frowned.

“‘Cause of my dad?”

“Because, like, your dad was always ordering you around when you were a kid, to a crazy degree, so you thought that was normal? I mean-- Sorry. I’m talking out my ass, uh. I hate it when people psychoanalyze me based on my parents.” Saying so made him remember that he still needed to call Kyle and Stan. 

“It’s okay,” Butters said. “I’ve thought about that, sure. But the truth is, Eric and my old man don’t have much in common.”

“No?” 

“My dad is all about keeping up appearances and doing anything to fit in. Eric doesn’t really care what anybody thinks of him.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Kenny said. In fact, he was sure that it wasn’t, and surprised that Butters still couldn’t see through Cartman’s bullshit bluster after all this time. “He didn’t tell me about the condo at first. I mean, that it had been his, and that he’d had to sell it.” 

“But he did admit it, eventually. My dad wouldn’t have.” 

Butters ducked under the water and swam to the edge of the pool, still in the deep end. Kenny followed, not really sure what he was supposed to do. The wind was picking up as the sun disappeared, rustling the palm trees that towered overhead. The vacillation between feeling incredibly relaxed, lucky, and hopeful before being thrown back into queasy, anxious confusion was beginning to get to him, but he still chased Butters around the pool with a genuine smile on his face, until they were both laughing like kids. He was surprised and a little impressed when Butters kept his vow to stay out of reach and refrain from kissing him. 

“I’d better head back down south,” Butters said when they were towelling off, the sky purplish and the wind still rustling the palms. 

“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Kenny asked, though he seemed fine. “I mean, it’s almost an hour to Poipu, you could spend the night here--”

“Nah, that’s all right. Where would I sleep? I’d have to choose a bed, yours or Eric’s. That might not go well!”

“You could have the opium bed, I could sleep on the couch--”

“It’s okay, Ken, I don’t mind the drive back. And listen, how about we meet at Kilauea Bakery tomorrow for breakfast? There’s a pretty nice park near there, too-- You never did see the lighthouse and all that last time you were here, did you? And Secret Beach?”

“I definitely never saw Secret Beach. Sounds good.” Kenny pictured a secluded stretch of powdery virgin sand, where he could cinematically mount Butters while waves crashed around them. 

“I suppose you can bring Eric,” Butter said, crushing this fantasy. “If he’s awake.” 

“Sure,” Kenny said, surprised. Hadn’t Butters just vowed to stop caring about Cartman’s feelings? “If he won’t, uh. Get on your nerves too much?”

“Oh, he doesn’t really bother me, unless he’s trying to deny that he was untrue. I do feel bad for him in a way, always wrecking every good thing he gets. And I feel a little bad for kissing you,” Butters added, looking down. “I’m not a heartless monster. Like him!”

“Right.” 

“But, well. Anyhow.” Butters reached out to touch Kenny’s chest, brushing his fingertips from his breastbone to his belly. “You’re so fit,” he said. 

“It’s-- California,” Kenny blurted, not even sure what he meant. He was getting hard. “Just-- people there. You work out a lot, it’s part of the, like. Culture.” 

“Sure.” Butters gave him a little smile, and Kenny waited to see if he would get another kiss. He wasn’t even sure that he was disappointed when he didn’t. They settled on meeting at ten for breakfast, and Kenny had to wonder if Butters chose this late-ish time because Cartman would be more likely to join them.

He walked Butters to his car, then lingered on the complex’s winding pathway while he dialed Stan’s cell. It would be late there, but he assumed they would rather he called now than wait another day to hear from him. If he didn’t check in soon Kyle might fly out to Kauai in a panic, thinking Cartman had murdered him. 

“Are you okay?” Stan asked in lieu of a greeting, and Kenny laughed.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry, I’ve been busy--”

“Kyle thought you might be dead.”

“I figured.” 

“Well, it’s Cartman,” Stan said. “Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Kyle is there?” 

“Yeah, he’s here. Kyle, say hello.” 

“Hello.” 

“You’re annoyed at me?” Kenny asked. He felt guilty, then irritated, and had to refrain from saying You’re not actually my mother.

“It’s late here,” Kyle said. “I’m tired.”

“He had a hard day at work.”

“Stan!”

“What? It’s Kenny.”

“What happened?” Kenny asked.

“Nothing! What’s happening there? Did you find Butters?”

“Yeah.” Kenny checked behind him on the path. “He kissed me.”

“What!” Kyle sounded delighted and horrified at the same time. Stan was laughing. 

“What the fuck?” he said. “Why?”

“Why? Well, I don’t know, Stan, I don’t think it’s that shocking to imagine someone might want to kiss me.” 

“Butters, though?” Kyle said. “He’s-- What? Using you to get back at Cartman?”

“Why do you assume that?” Kenny asked. “Why can’t he be mad at Cartman but also having genuine feelings for me?”

“Because this is, like, the middle of their breakup! The eye of the fucking storm! Butters isn’t ready for a new romance.”

“Don’t presume to know what Butters is ready for.” 

“Hang on,” Stan said. “Did you-- Does Cartman know you’re kissing his husband?”

“They’re not married,” Kyle snapped. “You know that.”

“Cartman doesn’t know we kissed,” Kenny said. He was whispering, just in case. “He’ll be devastated, and I know I shouldn’t care--”

“Well, he might kill you when he finds out,” Kyle said. “So in that sense, you should care. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s brought you there to die.”

“That’s-- a weird feeling to have,” Kenny said, not sure how to continue. 

“Dude, wait,” Stan said. “Butters kissed you, fine. He’s having his meltdown or whatever. But what about you? Do you-- Like Butters?”

Kyle snorted. “Like him! You sound like you’re talking to a ten-year-old.”

“I like him,” Kenny said. “Romantically, yes. I’m attracted to Butters.”

This made Stan laugh.

“Shut up!” Kenny said. “Butters is great!” He heard himself getting loud and checked the path behind him again. There was nothing but a gentle breeze, but he was beginning to feel paranoid, like Cartman was hearing this somehow. “I should probably go,” he said. “Just wanted to let you guys know I’m okay.”

“You’re okay?” Kyle said. “Kinda sounds like you’re losing your mind.” 

“Why, because I’m attracted to Butters? He might not be your type, but I think you can admit he’s a good looking guy, okay, he’s adorable, and his ass is perfect--” 

“Stop talking about Butters’ ass! Did you seriously go on this trip to try to seduce him out from under Cartman? I can think of about ten thousand ways that could go horribly wrong!” 

“So can I!” Kenny said. “I’m not stupid!”

“You’re sure acting like it!”

“You’re not my mother, Kyle!” 

“Guys,” Stan said. He sighed. “Kyle just left the room.” 

“That’s fine,” Kenny said. He winced when he heard himself enunciating that the way Cartman typically did. “Why is he so invested in my love life, anyway?” 

“Your love life, dude? That’s what this is?”

“What the hell else would it be?” Kenny asked, though he understood Stan’s incredulity. Stan sighed again. 

“Just be careful,” he said. “Don’t let them manipulate you.”

“Them? Butters isn’t doing anything wrong. He left Cartman, okay? He didn’t ask for Cartman to show up here and try to win him back.” 

“Dude, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Kenny admitted. “Fuck! I really like him, though, Stan. Butters, I mean.”

“I knew who you meant. What’s Cartman doing while Butters is kissing you?”

“I don’t know, he sleeps a lot. I should get back.”

“To what?” Stan sounded like he was afraid Kenny had stepped away from an orgy. 

“Is it an orgy if you only have three people?” Kenny asked, just to fuck with him. Stan snorted. 

“You’re lucky I took you off speaker,” he said. 

“Tell Kyle I’m sorry.”

“Ah, god, you don’t have to apologize to him. He’s really stressed out. Someone else got the promotion he wanted at work. That means he can’t telecommute like he was hoping.” 

“Dammit.” 

“I know. And it’s Halloween in two days, and you’re not here! You do the best pumpkins.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Live your life. Don’t worry about us, we’re fine. Just check in once in a while, or we’ll get worried. Jesus, now I sound like your mother.” 

“That’s okay,” Kenny said. He decided not to point out that Stan was clearly the father in this fucked up arrangement. “I’ll call you if anything happens. Otherwise, assume I’m fine.” 

“Just call me tomorrow, dude. Kyle will have cooled off by then.”

“Fine, all right. Bye.”

Kenny headed back toward the condo after he’d hung up, wondering why he never saw anyone else on the path. He had seen the landscapers during the day, and there were often people getting into or out of cars in the parking lot, but he never seemed to run into any other property owners or vacationers as he made his way to Cartman’s place. He punched the entry code in and slipped inside, hoping Cartman would still be asleep. When he found the couch in the living room empty he felt a jolt of disproportionate terror, as if he was in a horror movie and the seemingly incapacitated killer was suddenly gone. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

Kenny jumped when Cartman appeared behind him, and he was almost ready to put up his fists, not sure what to expect. Cartman looked tired and was wearing his flannel pants again, and the Elitch Gardens t-shirt. His eyes were a little puffy, probably just from sleeping. 

“I was having a walk,” Kenny said. “I walked Butters to his car, then I called Stan and Kyle.” He felt stupid, again, for acting as if he was beholden to report his every move to Cartman. 

“Stan and Kyle, huh?” Cartman huffed and yawned. “What do those two assholes have to say for themselves?”

“Nothing, really.” Kenny felt bad when he realized he hadn’t asked them a single question about how they were doing, though Kyle was the one who had launched straight into an outraged interrogation about the Butters situation. “They’re boring,” Kenny said, to please Cartman. “An old married couple.” 

“They’re not married. Are they?”

“No, but. I mean, they essentially are.” 

“Yeah.” Cartman went into the kitchen and got a plastic tumbler from the cabinet. “Here’s to essentially being married,” he muttered, pouring rum into it. “You want some?”

“I can’t drink any more rum today.” He could go for a beer, but didn’t want one badly enough to make a trip to the grocery store or find a bar. Cartman threw back the rum in one swallow and sighed. 

“I fucking fell asleep,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.” 

“It’s the day drinking,” Kenny said. 

“What, I’m supposed to watch the goddamn World Series without proper refreshments?”

“No, just. That’s what makes you tired. Me, anyway.” 

“Yeah, but you stayed awake. Butters went home?”

“Uh-huh. He wants us to have breakfast with him tomorrow morning, at that bakery he likes.” Kenny decided not to mention about Secret Beach. Though it didn’t seem likely, it was possible Butters had meant to only invite him there. 

“Fine,” Cartman muttered. “You want to watch a movie?”

They ended up in Cartman’s bed again, Kenny with a glass of soda and Cartman eating out of a container of macadamia nut ice cream that looked like it had been in the condo’s freezer for a while. The movie he’d selected was an Adam Sandler thing called Big Daddy. Kenny hadn’t seen it since high school and was kind of shocked by how badly it had aged, though he didn’t remember particularly liking it back then. 

“Do you remember asking me about a Rob Schneider movie last night?” he asked, when it seemed like Cartman was close to drifting off again, the empty ice cream cartoon sitting between them on the bed. “The one where he’s a carrot?” Kenny said when Cartman frowned at him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. 

“Nothing. Never mind. I’m going to bed.”

“But the movie’s not over.” 

“It’s-- it’s over for me, sorry. I’ll wake you up for breakfast in the morning. Don’t be a dick to me when the time comes to get ready to leave, okay? And I’d prefer it if you weren’t nude.”

“Look at you, thinking you can give me orders!” Cartman snorted and he shoved the ice cream carton at him. “Throw that out,” he said, staring at the TV. 

“Why don’t you have a bedroom door?” Kenny asked, fuming. He knew he should chuck the ice cream carton at Cartman and tell him to fuck off, but he was a guest here, everywhere; there was really no reason for him to refuse to take out the trash. “It’s fucking weird,” Kenny said when he slid out of the bed, still holding the ice cream carton. 

“This was a love nest,” Cartman said. “You wouldn’t understand.” 

“I was married, asshole. Don’t talk to me like I’m some kind of neutered manservant.” 

That made Cartman laugh, which Kenny didn’t appreciate. He’d been serious.

“Why have a guest room if this place is purely a love nest?” Kenny asked. The more he thought about this the more it bothered him. Cartman was pretending to be absorbed in the movie. 

“I thought you were leaving,” he said, glaring at Kenny when he stood there waiting for an answer. 

“I was, but--”

“So go, if you’re gonna! Scram, hippie!” 

“Nobody says ‘scram’ in real life,” Kenny said, but he went, continuing to feel like he wasn’t in real life, precisely, though also not in a dream. 

Kenny fell asleep that night expecting another erotic visitation from dream Butters, but the only dream he could remember in the morning was one about Kyle being angry with him and locking him out of his childhood house, which Kyle had purchased and planned to flip. Cartman showed up toward the end, in some kind of real estate capacity, wearing a suit and for some reason carrying blueprints that were tucked under his arm. He shouted at Kenny for not having pants on, and Kenny looked down to find himself in white briefs, an open flannel shirt and nothing more. He was also holding a beer, and his teeth were falling out.

“I thought Butters was coming,” Kenny said, trying to catch the teeth that fell as he spoke. Cartman laughed. 

“Butters is in Philadelphia,” he said. “Selling his eggs. Making me a fortune!”

“I’m calling the police!” Kyle shouted, from the front window of Kenny’s old house, using Kenny’s mother’s voice. Kenny woke up then, relieved, though the dream left a lingering pall as he got ready for the day. 

He had dreaded waking Cartman and was surprised to find him already rousing when he peeked in through the master bedroom doorway. Cartman was moaning as if he had just risen from the dead, but he was mostly decent, still wearing his t-shirt and flannel pants, which did little to conceal his tented morning boner. Also surprisingly, he was ready to leave five minutes later, wearing the navy polo and khakis that he’d had on the day before. Kenny was wearing his board shorts under an old t-shirt, in case Butters wanted to swim at Secret Beach.

It was a bright, cloudless day, and already very hot as they drove east toward Kilauea. Cartman put a static-addled local station that was playing Hawaiian folk music, and he drove with the Jeep’s windows down, the wind mostly precluding conversation. Kenny was glad for that, and glad that they were headed toward Butters, though he would have preferred another quiet morning alone with him. 

“What are you doing?” Kenny asked when Cartman pulled into the parking lot of a post office that sat in the middle of a field dotted with chickens and roosters. 

“Gotta pick up some money orders,” Cartman said. He parked the Jeep and turned it off. “Be right back.”

“Money orders? What? Why? We’ll be late to meet Butters.”

“Relax, Jesus! The bakery’s right across the road there. Walk over and get in line, it’ll be busy by now.” 

Kenny wasn’t confident that the bakery was indeed across the road, and as he wandered toward the shopping complex there he half-expected to turn and see Cartman tearing off in the Jeep without him, laughing. After a few minutes of searching he found a crowd gathered outside an old white house at the center of the complex, and spotted Butters sitting at one of the little tables out front, sipping from a to-go coffee. Butters grinned and waved at Kenny, who thought he caught a blink of disappointment on Butters’ face when he didn’t see Cartman there, too. 

“Cartman’s across the street,” Kenny said. “At the post office. He says we should get in line.”

“Oh, that’s a good idea. C’mon, you’re gonna love this place!” 

The bakery was small and the interior was cramped, a line already winding out the door. Kenny craned his neck to try to see the display case while Butters rattled off all the things he typically liked to order. Cartman arrived just as they’d made their way inside, and he pushed past the other people in line as rudely as possible before joining Kenny and Butters. He was really too big to stand comfortably in the space, but he didn’t seem to notice this, elbowing his way around other patrons to examine the pastries that were available. 

“What’d you need to go to the post office for?” Butters asked when Cartman finally looked at him. 

“Business,” Cartman said. “Don’t worry about it. What do you care, anyway? You’ve left me, allegedly. Our personal finances have been severed.” 

“All right,” Kenny said, not wanting to get started on this right away. “What are you guys ordering?”

Kenny got sweet bread and a sticky bun on Butters’ recommendation, Butters had a mango tartlet and a cinnamon roll, and Cartman essentially ordered one of everything in the pastry case, which the cashier seemed to anticipate. She gathered his order into a giant white box that was big enough for a cake, and Kenny hoped he would at least save some of what he’d ordered for later. They took their breakfast outside and found a table near a free community book stand, and Kenny realized as soon as he took a first bite from his sticky bun that he was starving. He sort of hoped Cartman might share some of his giant box of goodies, but wouldn’t hold his breath or lower himself to asking. 

“My god,” Cartman said, wiping chocolate from his mouth. “I want to fuck these macaroons in their delicious little asses.”

“Shh!” Butters said. There were children sitting nearby with their parents. “Eric, Jesus. You don’t have to yell it.” 

“I wasn’t yelling. Goddamn, I’ve missed these things. You didn’t get one? They’re the guava ones, your favorite!”

“Passion fruit is my favorite,” Butters said. “But I would accept a bite if you’re offering.” 

Something about watching Butters sink his teeth into the macaroon that had already been half-decimated by Cartman’s huge bite mark was depressing, with an edge of disturbing appeal. Butters licked chocolate from his lips and smiled at Kenny. 

“Magnificent!” he said. “Don’t you think?”

“Uh-huh,” Kenny said. He eyed Cartman’s box of treats, wondering if he had another macaroon in there. “Please don’t eat all of that in one sitting,” he said when Cartman unwrapped a coconut chocolate chip bar. “You’ll be sick.” 

“Of course I’m not going to eat it all!” Cartman bellowed. The nearby family hastily began to clear up their table. “What the hell do you think I am? I’m fat, okay, I was born fat, I’ll always be fat. But I don’t have a goddamn eating disorder.” 

“We always get a big box like that when we make the trip over here,” Butters said to Kenny. He was speaking kind of gently, in a way that Kenny was tempted to find insulting. “That way we can have some for dessert, too.” 

So they were ‘we’ again, apparently, or at least temporarily. Kenny busied himself with his sweet bread and burned his tongue on his coffee, trying not to feel defeated already. 

After breakfast, they went to the nearby National Wildlife Refuge, which culminated in a rocky peninsula that overlooked the sea and featured a small lighthouse. Cartman declined the suggested donation upon entry, and Kenny was sorry to find that he had no cash. Butters gave ten dollars. 

“The wildlife here is mostly seabirds,” Butters said as they walked out toward the scenic overlook areas. It was blistering hot and the park was virtually without shade, but Kenny felt more optimistic and comfortable than he had during breakfast, maybe because Butters was hovering at his side while Cartman lagged behind them, sweating profusely. “Sometimes you can see whales from up here,” Butters said. “But it’s not too likely at this time of year. Too bad we didn’t see any last time you were here, either!” 

Kenny imagined the cruel joke about Cartman that Kyle would make if he were with them. He felt bad for even thinking of it and turned, pausing in place so Cartman could catch up. He’d left the box of sweets in the Jeep, and Kenny imagined they would be melting horribly by the time they returned. 

“Fuck,” Cartman said. “It’s hot.” 

“I have sunscreen back in the car,” Butters said. “You want me to run and get it?” 

“You know I hate wearing sunscreen.” 

“You oughta at least wear a hat on a day like this!” Butters said. Kenny wondered if that was a dig at Cartman’s increasing baldness. He followed Butters to the railing that overlooked the sea and a cliff where hundreds of sea birds appeared to best nesting. He felt like he should take a picture, but he wouldn’t even know where to start, between the idyllic sky, the verdant hillside dotted with snow white birds, or the dramatic waves crashing against sea caves below. A picture wouldn’t really capture it, and especially not one snapped on his phone. It was the wind and the salt smell, too, and the contented little cries of the birds. “He’s like a child,” Butters muttered under his breath, as if he wasn’t seeing any of it. Kenny wasn’t sure if he should respond. 

“Well, there it is,” Cartman said when he collapsed against the railing beside them. “The biggest pile of bird shit on the island.” 

“Knock it off,” Butters said. “They’re beautiful.” 

They were really too far away to be beautiful as birds, but as a sort of whimsical decor that was sprinkled over the landscape, they were perfect. Kenny spent some time at every vantage point on the peninsula, and he grinned when Butters pointed out Secret Beach, which was visible from the western side. It looked empty. 

“We’ll go there next,” Butters said, presumably meaning Cartman would join them. 

“I’m wearing my swimsuit,” Kenny said.

“Oh, we probably won’t be able to swim. Some days you can, but I think the waves are too high today. It’s mostly a scenic experience.” 

“That’s fine.” Kenny elbowed Butters, trying to be playful. Cartman had taken a call on his cell and was barking at someone about interest rates, wandering around behind them. “Do you regret yesterday?” Kenny asked, needing to know how he should feel about the rest of today. Butters looked confused.

“Yesterday?”

Kenny made a kiss face, pursing his lips. He hoped he wouldn’t have to say it out loud. 

“Oh!” Butters grinned and elbowed him back. “No, I don’t regret that one bit.” 

“But what if--” Kenny glanced behind them. Cartman had wandered out of earshot, probably because he was being given some more bad financial news. “What if he’s telling the truth and he really didn’t cheat on you? What then?”

“What else could it be, though?” Butters asked. “Him lying to me, sneaking around, get all flustered and angry when I found out? It’s not like he’s given me some alternate explanation. He doesn’t even have the gall to make up a crappy story, because he knows he screwed up and wrecked everything. He got caught, and he won’t say it in so many words, but this whole thing, coming here with you, buying me dinner, staying in our old condo-- It’s his version of an apology. Just because he hasn’t admitted what he did, doesn’t mean it didn’t really happen. This is classic Eric when he knows he’s backed into a corner because of his own mistakes.” 

“I’m sorry, I know, you’re right. It’s just. He’s still here.” 

“I know.” Butters sighed and looked out at the ocean again. “It’s not fair to you.”

“Well. I did come here with him. I let him buy my plane ticket. I’m sleeping in his opium bed.” 

Butters opened his mouth to respond, but Cartman was heading back toward them before he could, muttering to himself. 

“Can we go somewhere with some goddamn shade, please?” Cartman asked. 

“Let’s head to the beach,” Kenny said, though it didn’t look like there was much shade down there either. 

Butters left his car parked at the shopping center and rode in the backseat of the Jeep, Kenny upfront and Cartman driving. They parked near the end of a gated driveway that appeared to lead to a cliffside mansion that wasn’t visible from the road, and Kenny was surprised to see that the path to the beach was a steep, narrow descent criss-crossed by gnarled tree roots, though he supposed something called ‘Secret’ would indeed involve some maneuvering to reach. He was mostly surprised that Cartman was willing to make the trip down, as it was somewhat difficult and tricky in spots. Cartman and Butters were both wearing flip-flops. Kenny was glad for his sneakers, though they would be sandy for the rest of the trip. 

“This is like a fairy tale,” Kenny said when they had nearly reached the beach, the bright sunlight at the end of the trail framed by the tree canopy that encircled the trail. “Like we’re about to enter a mystical land or something.” He waited for Cartman to make fun of him, but he was too preoccupied by the descent, huffing a little and lagging behind. 

“That’s how I feel about a lot of places in Kauai,” Butters said. “Like I’m in a story or a movie or something.” 

The beach seemed enormous when they emerged onto it, maybe because there were only five people in sight once they had reached the shore. Butters stopped a couple of feet away from the reach of the breaking waves, which were crashing impressively, loud and violently beautiful. Cartman was out of breath when he came to stand beside them, but even he seemed a bit taken in by the sight of the ocean as it tumbled toward them in a sort of measured, sparkling chaos. Kenny got goosebumps when the waves crested and approached, and he felt simultaneously repulsed and beckoned forward by the indifferent power of the ocean. They were close enough to feel the spray, but not close enough for the fanning water that had broken on the sand to reach their bare feet. Kenny had taken his shoes off they they reached the bottom of the trail, and he dropped them in the sand before taking a seat. He turned and saw the mansion on the cliff that hadn’t been visible from the end of its long driveway, and he tried to imagine who might live there. It was a grandly positioned but understated home, almost like a temple, with curved eaves on the roof.

“I don’t suppose one of your friends lives up there?” Kenny said when Butters sat beside him. 

“No,” Butters said, turning to look up at the house. “I think it might be some kinda celebrity. All the fanciest houses are empty for most of the year, ‘cause their owners have houses all over the place.” He turned to look at Cartman, who was staring at the ocean with his eyes slightly narrowed, maybe just because of the glare of the sun. “Seems a little wasteful and extravagant,” Butters said. “When you really think about it.” 

Kenny thought of Cartman and Butters’ house back in South Park. To his knowledge, it was the only property they still owned. They’d had it built seven years ago on a wooded lot set away from the clusters of suburban homes where they’d grown up, and it had an impressive view of the mountains off the back deck and through the huge windows in the high-ceilinged living room. Kenny had been there only once, for their housewarming party. This was just a few months before he moved to California, met Glory, and began what he had assumed would be his actual grown-up life. The party had been sparsely attended, but Butters had gone all out with hors d’oeurves and themed cocktails, and the decor was thoughtful. Cartman had been drunk, but not to an unpleasant degree, and he had given Kenny a tour of the place when he arrived. Kenny remembered the laundry room in particular, maybe because the new construction smell was strongest down there, attached to the finished basement. He had always associated that sawdust and fresh paint smell with the luxurious comfort that rich people enjoyed, though of course people who lived in brand new houses weren’t really rich, by most people’s standards. 

“What are you thinking about?” Butters asked, his voice suddenly very close to Kenny’s ear, and suddenly very soft. Kenny looked up to see Cartman still doing a kind of mountain pose and glowering at the ocean.

“Your housewarming party,” Kenny said. “A million years ago.” 

He regretted the honest answer when he realized that this would bring up happy memories of Butters’ time with Cartman. They had seemed very enamored with each other at that party; it had been their first time living together. It had felt a little bit like a wedding reception. Kenny had been moody about this, still pining for Butters at the time, in the sense that he didn’t think about Butters often but experienced a kind of disappointed malaise whenever he saw Butters in town or heard his name, like he was seeing a picture of a beautifully wrapped present he had never gotten the chance to open. Cartman had found it first, identified it as valuable in a way that had taken Kenny too long, and opened it greedily with his own unworthy hands. Kenny had stood out on the back porch alone at during their housewarming party, after getting the tour from Cartman and before the heavy appetizers were served. He had watched the snow fall and wondered if he would ever be a homeowner, or even one half of a happy couple. 

“Oh, gosh,” Butters said. He pulled his knees up to his chest and reached over to touch Cartman’s leg. “I do love that house.” 

“Huh?” Cartman said, shouting over the sound of the waves. 

“Nothing!” Butters shouted back. 

“Why are you pawing me?”

“For crying out loud,” Butters said. He took his hand from Cartman’s leg and wrapped both of his arms around his knees. 

“Can we leave?” Cartman asked. “What are you two even doing?”

“We’re enjoying the majesty of nature!” Butters shouted. 

“That’s what we’ve been doing all goddamn day. C’mon, game seven starts in two hours and I want to eat lunch first.” 

Kenny had enjoyed the beach so much that he’d completely forgotten the uphill trek they would have to make on the way back. He didn’t mind: the trail itself was beautiful, with sun beams cutting through the foliage overhead. Cartman’s ascent was stressing him out before they’d even climbed halfway, however. Cartman was trailing behind, huffing and moaning, cursing his flip flops. When Kenny and Butters reached the top they had to wait five more minutes for Cartman to fight his way up, and he was very red in the face when he reached the car, glowering when Butters asked if he was okay. 

“I’m fine!” Cartman barked. “I just need some lunch.” 

They dropped Butters off at his car, and Kenny rode with Cartman in the Jeep, though he would have preferred the company of Butters. The three of them stopped at a small local market for lunch plates and snacks, and Butters bought a local newspaper. Back at the condo, Kenny took a shower and emerged to find Butters curled up on the sofa with the paper while Cartman made drinks and the announcers on TV talked about the starting lineups for Game Seven. It was a cozy scene, and Kenny felt out of place within it. Though he was tired of day drinking, he accepted a mai tai when Cartman handed him one.

“Here’s to your team,” Kenny said, clicking his glass against Cartman’s. He sincerely wanted the Giants to win, for fear that they would have to fly home immediately if Cartman lost money on his bet. 

“They’ll win,” Cartman said. “They’ve got Madison Bumgarner.” 

“That’s a real guy’s name?”

“Shut up, Kenny.”

They moved into the living room, and Kenny was tempted to sit between Cartman and Butters when Cartman took the other side of the couch. He decided it wouldn’t be worth the awkward snarl Cartman would surely give him and dropped into the arm chair near Butters’ side of the couch instead. He thought about calling Stan and Kyle during the game, but ended up getting absorbed in the action and cheering along with Cartman, maybe just because he helped himself to a second mai tai in the fifth inning. When the Giants won, he was on his feet clapping. Butters had dozed off with the newspaper tucked under his arm at one point, and he woke to yawn and clap tiredly along with them when he heard them celebrating. 

“This is a special fucking occasion!” Cartman said, rubbing his hands together with glee while the TV showed the Giants partying on the field and spraying each other with champagne. “I’m taking you bitches out for a fancy cocktail. What do you think of that?” he asked, turning to Butters. 

“I think it’s a real nice offer,” Butters said. “I’ll drive.” 

The sun was going down when they reached their destination, Cartman’s definition of a high class cocktail: the balcony of the St. Regis’ stately bar, overlooking the ocean and a magnificent sunset behind the crested cove that protected the hotels’ beach. There was some kind of official ceremony overseen by the concierge, involving a conch shell and a toast that Kenny couldn’t hear. They weren’t seated close enough; all the seats on the balcony had been taken by the time they arrived. They were inside at the gleaming wooden bar, helping themselves to spiced nuts and pretzels from a crystal bowl while they sipped champagne. 

“This is a sign,” Cartman said, still flushed with pleasure from watching his team win; he seemed unable to stop smiling, and Kenny was concerned about how often Butters was returning these smiles, suddenly. “Shit’s turning around for me. I can feel it.” 

“I’m glad you won,” Butters said, as if Cartman had earned himself a World Series ring. He patted Cartman’s shoulder and lifted his champagne glass. “To better luck for you in the future, Eric.” 

This seemed to dampen Cartman’s spirits a bit, as if Butters was reminding him that their futures had already diverged, but he revived when their second round of drinks arrived. Kenny and Butters had switched to beer, Cartman to an expensive glass of scotch. Kenny felt slightly uncomfortable in their present surroundings, and underdressed, though the bartender treated them like any of the well-heeled assholes in the place. Kenny was still more than ready to leave after just two drinks, and glad when Cartman was agreeable to this. His tab had already reached eighty dollars.

“How do you collect on your bet?” Kenny asked when they were driving home, Butters at the wheel again. “Is it an online thing?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head over it,” Cartman said. 

“It’s online,” Butters said. “He doesn’t go shake ‘em down in person or anything.” 

“Not usually,” Cartman grumbled. 

“Not ever, Eric.” 

“You don’t know everything about what I do!”

“I suppose that’s true,” Butters said bitterly. Cartman groaned. Kenny was sitting in the backseat, leaning forward to insinuate himself between them somewhat. 

“Well, it’s good that you won,” he said when an angry silence settled over the two of them. “Now what?” 

“What do you mean?” Cartman asked. “Now we go back to the condo, eat some dinner, watch a movie. Right?” He looked at Butters, who sighed. 

“That sounds okay,” Butters said. “Kenny, what do you want to eat?”

“Anything,” Kenny said, suddenly very hungry. “Whatever you have.” He hadn’t intended that to sound like a double entendre, and he kept his expression mild when he saw Cartman giving him a suspicious stare in the rearview mirror. 

Back at the condo, Cartman ordered a pizza, which Kenny understood to be a furtherance of the general celebratory mood. Pizza was special, a treat for all of them since childhood, and waiting for it to arrive created a kind of cheerful, slumber party-like atmosphere in the condo. They all helped themselves to more drinks, and Butters flipped through Cartman’s collection of DVDs. Increasingly drunk, Kenny began to wonder with some amusement if they would eat the pizza in Cartman’s bed while watching whichever DVD Butters picked out. His cell phone vibrated with an incoming call from Kyle, and he stepped out onto the back lanai to take it. 

“Cartman residence,” Kenny said. 

“That’s not funny.” Kyle was silent after this declaration, and Kenny could picture his face clearly, brows creased and lips tight. “It’s very late here,” he said.

“Well, you’re the one calling me--”

“It’s midnight. I thought about calling earlier, but I wasn’t ready to talk to you until now.” 

“Hmm. That sounds kind of ominous. Is Stan asleep?”

“Yes, he’s sleeping. Listen, I had a terrible dream that Cartman had you on a leash. A literal leash.” 

“That is terrible. You’ll be glad to know that it’s not actually happening.” 

“Isn’t it, though, Kenny? And now Butters is hanging around, giving you come-hither glances? I don’t like it. They’re up to something.” 

“Like what, Kyle?” 

“I don’t know. What did they make you do today?”

“They didn’t make me do anything. Voluntarily, I went to breakfast with them, then we went to a nature preserve, then the beach. Then we watched baseball and went to a bar. Right now we’re waiting on our pizza to get here.” 

“Our pizza, Kenny?”

“Well, yeah, in the sense that all three of us are going to eat it--”

“Kenny, don’t play dumb with me. I hate it when you do that. You know this is weird. You’re troubled, I can tell. You sound drunk.” 

“I’m on vacation! It’s nighttime. I’m not drunk, just-- Drinking.” 

“Yeah, but you’re unsettled by this. Pretending like it’s not bothering you to be in the presence of whatever their fucking deal is.”

“It’s actually not. I had a nice day. I think maybe it’s bothering you, and you’re projecting onto me.” 

“Well, yeah, it’s bothering me! Something nefarious is afoot!”

“Or maybe you’re just jealous that Cartman and Butters have stolen your live-in audience.” 

“My what?”

“Look.” Kenny shouldn’t have said that. He glanced down at his mai tai, calculating it to be his fifth drink of the evening. “I just mean-- It’s usually you and Stan, and me there to kind of admire your cohesiveness and boggle over your, uh, less cohesive-- Moments--”

“What the hell are you blathering about?” 

“I gotta go,” Kenny said. “Forget it. Pizza’s here.”

“Stan and I didn’t let you move in here because we wanted an admiring audience! God! You were homeless! I mean, hello? We were doing you a favor!”

“I know, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that--”

“They’ve got you all mixed up already, that’s why! They’re cutting you off from your only support system! Us! That’s what cults do, Kenny.” 

“This isn’t a cult. This is a Hawaiian vacation.”

“Is it, though, Kenny? Is it really?”

“I’m gonna go eat pizza--”

“Just promise me you won’t suck Cartman’s dick,” Kyle said, and Kenny hung up on him. 

There was no dick sucking that evening, though the three of them did end up in bed together, with the pizza, while Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home played on the TV across from the bed. Despite the intimate sitting arrangements, Kenny found the whole thing kind of cozy and innocent, and the only potentially odd part of the evening came when they heard a rooster crow nearby. 

“You know some roosters have harems?” Butters asked. He was lying between Cartman and Kenny, hands on his belly and chin tucked to his chest. 

“Harems?” Kenny said. 

“Yeah, and then some of ‘em cooperatively grange with several hens, and some of ‘em just grange together with no hens at all.” 

“Huh,” Kenny said, not sure what to make of this. Cartman grunted and reached over to pat Butters’ thigh.

“This fucker loves birds,” he said. 

Kenny felt himself drifting to sleep, and he decided it would be fine to just nap until the end of the movie. Then Butters would wake him up to say goodnight before driving home. Just before he zoned out entirely he considered what Kyle would say about this: three grown men having a pizza party and sharing a bed, falling asleep together, and moving in a kind of stumbling parallel fashion toward nothing in particular. Kyle didn’t understand: he wasn’t present to see these situations unfold in their weird but harmless way, and Kenny wouldn’t be able to explain how strangely appropriate it felt to be exactly where he was. He felt better than had in the pool with Butters the night before, and certainly better than when he’d been alone with Cartman. At least when it was all three of them, no real decisions about how to move forward could be made. Kenny was fine with being in stasis for a little while longer.

Kenny woke up in the middle of the night to find them both gone. He was still on his side of the bed, facing the master bathroom. The shower was running, and he could see someone inside, a blur of flesh-tone through the frosted glass: Butters, certainly, based on the body type. Kenny checked the other side of the bed again, half expecting Cartman to have reappeared there, but there wasn’t even a Cartman-sized indent in the mattress.

“Psst! Ken!” 

He turned back to the bathroom to see Butters poking his head out from the shower, smiling, wet bangs plastered adorably to his forehead. “I been waiting for you to wake up,” Butters said. “C’mere.” 

“Where’s Cartman?” Kenny asked, whispering. 

“He’s not invited. Do I have to explain again? This is our special place.”

“You mean I’m dreaming again?”

“It’s not that simple, more like an astral projection, but hell, if you want to call it a dream, that’s fine. S’long as you’re willing to fuck me in this shower, you can think of this little interlude as whatever you like.” 

“Butters,” Kenny said, still in in bed, still whispering. “You’re killing me. Or I am, if this is a dream. Which it probably is.” 

“Kenny, do you want to have shower sex or not?” 

“Well-- Yeah.” He was already hard, imagining the heat of the water on his skin, and Butters’ hands sliding over him. “But-- Where’s Cartman? Like, in reality?”

“What does it matter where he is in reality? We’re not there!” 

“But are we still in bed together? The three of us?”

“Kenny! What difference does it make?” Butters slipped one wet leg out from behind the frosted shower door, presenting it burlesque-style for Kenny’s viewing pleasure. He had somewhat feminine calves, which Kenny appreciated. 

“I just don’t want to blow a load in my sleep while sharing a bed with Cartman,” Kenny said. He stood up anyway and walked into the bathroom, marveling at how real it felt. He could feel the steam from the shower on his cheeks as he got closer. Butters had pulled his leg back into the shower and was smiling triumphantly, hugging the door. 

“I’ve been thinking about it since the last time I had you,” Butters said. “How good it felt.”

“In the pool?”

“No, silly, in the opium bed. When you were inside me.” 

“Yeah, but. Are you also the Butters who was with me in the pool?”

“Well, of course I am! There’s only one Butters, right? Get in here, mister, I need you to clean me up.” 

Kenny groaned. He wanted to buy into this. It didn’t feel like a normal dream, but it didn’t feel like the real Butters either. Rather than drugged or hazy, Kenny felt almost too alive as he walked closer to the shower and pulled off the clothes that he was presumably still wearing in reality. 

“Are you dirty?” Kenny asked when he was almost within Butters’ reach, deciding it was wiser to use porn dialogue in this alternate dimension, as opposed to sincere entreaties for Butters to spell out his real feelings. Butters nodded slowly, backing into the shower. It was a huge space, tiled with expensive-looking dark stone and featuring two showerheads that filled the stall with steaming hot water. 

“I am dirty,” Butters said, shrinking against the shower wall in pretense of shyness. “Can’t you tell?” he asked, gripping his dick. Kenny licked his lips, nodding. 

The water felt warm on his skin, too real. Butters also felt uncannily solid when Kenny touched his hip, and when he wrapped his hand around Butters’ erection. Butters moaned and twitched into the touch, his mouth falling open when Kenny leaned in for a kiss. 

“I’m gonna suck your dick,” Kenny said, whispering this against Butters’ lips. “And then I’m going to turn you around, press your hands against the wall and fuck you real hard.” 

“Mhmm,” Butters said, giving Kenny a drowsy smile. “And eat my ass?” 

“Sure. You want that before or after my dick’s been in you?”

“Both!” 

Kenny wondered if the real Butters was this assertive in bed. He got to work, dropping to his knees on the stone tiled floor of the shower. Butters played with Kenny’s hair while Kenny sucked him off, stroking his fingers through it and tugging a little when Kenny did something particularly clever with his tongue. There was nothing demanding or pushy about the way Butters responded to Kenny’s touch, but at the same time it was always clear what he wanted, which Kenny found admirable. He had to remind himself, while deep throating, that this was still a dream, not the actual Butters. 

After the initial adjustment period, Kenny allowed himself to enjoy the dream in a state of delirious pleasure. Nothing about it had to make sense, except that Butters pleasured moans were surprisingly guttural, that he pressed back hungrily to meet Kenny’s thrusts when they fucked, and that he whimpered out encouragement when Kenny cleaned him up for his post-fuck rim job. They kissed for a long time afterward, ignoring any concern for hygiene. Kenny had an inkling that mid-sex hygiene was something Butters might ignore anyway, in real life, considering who he had been sleeping with for all of his adult life. 

“I think I’m waking up,” Kenny said when he felt a tingling pull at the pit of his stomach. Butters smiled and nodded drowsily. 

“You are,” he said. “Thanks for a good time.” 

Kenny opened his eyes, feeling not like he was coming out of sleep but like he’d been pricked by a needle when he wasn’t paying attention. As he had predicted while still enjoying the dream, his boxers were full of cooling come and his face was rapidly heating. He felt used, which was absurd, because it was a goddamn dream and the real Butters was sleeping sweetly beside him, turned onto his stomach. Cartman, meanwhile, was mysteriously absent from the bed. Kenny heard a retching sound and turned toward the master bathroom, afraid he would see Cartman in the shower, beckoning to him the way Butters had, but the bathroom door was shut. The sink sounded like it was running full blast, but Kenny could still periodically hear Cartman barfing. He checked the digital clock on Cartman’s side of the bed and saw that it was just a few minutes shy of seven in the morning. 

“You’re sick?” Kenny said when Cartman emerged, looking ghostly pale and sweaty. He’d shed his sleep pants but was thankfully still wearing his boxers and t-shirt. 

“What?” Cartman said, loud enough to draw a half-awake moan from Butters. 

“I heard you throwing up--”

“Why are you still here? Get out, go to your own room!” Cartman pointed toward the door. Kenny reached over to shake Butters awake, not wanting to leave him unwittingly alone with Cartman. Butters did another little soft moan thing as he blinked awake, and Kenny wondered if Cartman found this as arousing as he did. 

“Oh, dang,” Butters said, rolling onto his back and arching a little. Now Kenny had to wonder if he was intentionally trying to look fuckable, but that was silly. Butters was barely awake. “I fell asleep?”

“Yeah,” Kenny said. “It’s morning. Cartman is kicking us out.” 

“I’m kicking Kenny out,” Cartman said. “Butters, you can stay if you want.” 

“That’s okay,” Butters said, to Kenny’s delight. He sat up and stretched, squeaking a little. “I’m ready to start the day.” He beamed at Kenny, then at Cartman, who was frowning and looming over the bed. 

“Why were you vomiting?” Kenny asked as he slid out of bed. Cartman scowled. 

“I wasn’t,” he said. “You lunatic. You’re imagining things.” 

“Okay.” Kenny didn’t really care, anyway; Cartman had probably gotten up early and shoved the rest of that box of pastries into his mouth before Kenny and Butters could have any. He probably often started the day by eating enough to make himself sick. “Well, see you later,” Kenny said when Cartman continued to glower at him as he left the the room. Kenny looked back to make sure Butters was following, and smiled when he saw Butters scooting out of the bed and heading for the door without a look back at Cartman. 

“I’ll make some coffee,” Butters said, cheerful and wide awake already, his hand finding the small of Kenny’s back as soon as they had left Cartman’s bedroom. Kenny heard Cartman groan, and then the door to the master bathroom slammed shut again. “Is Eric really ill?” Butters asked, whispering.

“I think so,” Kenny said. “He probably ate too much or something.”

“Mhmm.” Butters cast a worried look at the doorway of the bedroom.

“I’m gonna change clothes,” Kenny said. He knew he probably shouldn’t mention that he needed to change his underwear because he had just awakened from a passionate wet dream about Butters, and yet, for some reason, he was tempted to bring it up. “Be right back.” 

Kenny brought clean clothes into the guest bathroom and gave himself a good wipe down with a damp towel, splashed water on his face, and put on deodorant. He felt refreshed when he emerged, and even kind of unburdened, as if the dream had relieved some real tension. He supposed it had, at least physically, and he was still perturbed the the idea that he’d had a sleepgasm while Cartman either lay snoring on the other side of the bed or was kneeling over a nearby toilet, puking his guts out for some reason. 

“Got any plans for today?” Kenny asked when he and Butters were sitting out on the lanai with their steaming mugs of coffee. Cartman had yet to leave the bedroom, which was fine by Kenny. 

“Hmm,” Butters said. “Well, no, today’s pretty free. If you want, I could show you some more of the island. Some more of the out of the way, lesser known places.”

“I’d love that,” Kenny said. He cleared his throat and blew on his coffee, then checked over his shoulder to make sure that Cartman hadn’t crept up behind them. “I, uh, had a dream about you last night,” he said, speaking softly. Butters smiled down into his coffee cup. 

“You been dreaming about me a lot?” he asked, also keeping his voice quiet. Kenny shrugged. 

“Just since I got to Kauai,” he said. “But. It’s not that unusual for me to think about you. At home, I mean. From time to time.” 

Kenny wanted to hear that Butters felt the same way, though he would be surprised if it were true. Butters blew into his coffee cup and smiled out at the yard, where a rooster with particularly lovely green tail feathers was high-stepping through the grass, making low threatening sounds at them as he passed. 

“Gosh,” Butters said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been courted before.” 

“Courted?” For a moment, Kenny thought Butters was referring to the rooster’s conduct, though Butters knew too much about avian behavior to mistake those noises for courtship. Kenny was mostly okay with that word being applied to what he was doing, though it was a also kind of a strange choice. “Not even by Cartman?”

“Oh, heck no. The summer before high school, Eric grabbed a video game controller out of my hand, threw it across the room and said he wanted to give me a BJ. I thought he was joking, but man alive, he got down on his knees right there in his living room and did it. With his mom outside mowing the lawn! Gosh. Sometimes I think back and still can’t believe it. I’d always thought he’d be the one trying to shove my head into his lap, you know?”

“Sure,” Kenny said, feeling queasy. “So that was it, huh? That was the courtship of Butters Stotch, the one and only?”

“Like I said, I don’t consider that a courtship. Eric wouldn’t even call me his boyfriend until college. He said we were friends with benefits. But boy would he lose his cool if I so much as smiled too much at another boy!”

“He was possessive? Of course he was-- he bullied you about it?”

“No, well, not exactly. More like he’d blubber and cry and say he knew all along I was gonna ‘grow up hot’ and leave him in the dust. I guess it mighta been some kind of emotional blackmail, but he really is pretty insecure. Oh, shoot, sorry. I don’t know why I’m talking about him.” 

“It’s fine,” Kenny said. He checked over his shoulder again. Still no sign of Cartman. “I mean, it’s natural that you still want to talk about him. About the relationship, I mean. You guys were together, like. Last month.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a strain for a while. Anyway, here’s what I’m thinking.” 

“Okay.” Kenny braced himself. 

“The Hindu monastery,” Butters said. 

“The-- How so?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? There’s one on Kauai, a real beautiful one, with amazing grounds! You can go and have a look around, even if you’re not a worshipper. I thought you might like it, since you’re worldly and so forth.” 

“I’m worldly?” Kenny grinned. “I’ve never even been out of the country, Butters. You’re the one who’s traveled all over the world.” 

“Just as a tourist, though, and you can imagine how culturally immersive an overseas trip with Eric gets. Mostly we just shopped and stayed in fancy hotels, by the pool. You lived in California! You owned a dang surfboard and everything. I saw the pics on Facebook. I thought you were a Buddhist or something, too?”

“Not really, but that sounds great. Yeah, a monastery. Let’s go.” 

Kenny hoped Cartman wouldn’t join them, and he was surprised when his wish came true. He figured Cartman must be feeling really poorly if he was willing to let them have a day together without him. 

“He’s gonna have a rest,” Butters said, speaking softly as he walked out of the master bedroom. Kenny was standing in the foyer, kind of resenting the fact that Cartman had been invited at all. 

“Is he okay?” Kenny asked. 

“He’s fine, he’s just hungover, and he hates the monsteary. He’s scared of the monks.” 

“I’m not scared of them!” Cartman shouted from the bedroom. “They’re just fucking creepy, okay? But I could kick their asses, no problem.” 

“Oh, Jesus,” Butters said. “Let’s head out.” 

It was overcast when they left the condo, but by the time they were driving south on the island’s only highway the sun had broken through the clouds. Butters stopped at a small coffee stand and got lattes for the two of them before steering the Corolla up a mountain road in the middle of the island, toward the monastery. The Hawaiian folk music on the car’s radio crackled in and out, the clouds reformed overhead, and there was a sprinkling of rain falling when they parked in a small, muddy lot at the foot of the pathway that led to the monastery, which was hidden behind dense foliage. Kenny could smell incense as soon as he climbed out of the car. The first structure they encountered was a small gazebo with informative plaques and a box for donations. 

“Should we put some money in?” Kenny asked, pretty sure that he didn’t have any cash. Butters shook his head. 

“They’ve got plenty of money,” he said, whispering. “You’ll see.”

Kenny didn’t really understand how monks could have plenty of money; it seemed contradictory. He followed Butters cautiously into the compound, which was quiet and well-landscaped, a few people wandering here and there. None of them looked like monks, but some of them were wearing wraps over their clothes. Kenny felt a little bum-like in his raggy jeans and t-shirt, which was the same one he’d worn to bed last night. 

“This is a banyan tree,” Butters said, taking Kenny’s hand to pull him inside the enclave of its massive roots, along a stone path toward a statute of a deity with three heads. “Same as the ones I showed you at the botanical garden the other day, only, you know, huge.” 

“It’s cool,” Kenny said, though he actually felt kind of creeped out by the tree, which towered over them and shaded the enclave that surrounded the statue, the tree’s roots stretched around them like a massive spider’s web. At the botanical garden, Kenny had read a plaque that described the banyan trees on Kauai as non-native ‘stranglers’ that had contributed to the extinction of several native species. Though the space under the tree was peaceful, there was something menacing about the reach of its roots, and Kenny felt awkward when a silent young couple walked in and put coins on the base of the deity’s statue. 

“Banyans are pretty,” Butters said, tiling his head back to look up at the dim sunlight that shone through the web of roots. “But my native land here would sure have been better off without them.”

The young couple gave Butters a look, and Kenny tugged on his hand, leading him back out onto the main path. They walked deeper into the compound and viewed a ceremony that was taking place at the temple, something that seemed, two monks chanting while a third waved strong-smelling incense around them. There were other onlookers, all of them solemn, and Kenny was disappointed by out of place and disconnected he felt. He had always sort of hoped that Hinduism could mean something to him, because of the focus on reincarnation, but this place only made him feel big and gangly, conspicuously blond, and like an interloper who had come to gawk. 

Butters didn’t seem to be similarly affected. He took Kenny back behind the temple and showed him a pair of mounted binoculars, through which an elaborate, palatial white temple deep in the rainforest could be viewed. 

“See?” Butters said. “They’ve got plenty of money.” He shook his head. “All the homeless people on this island, lots of them natives-- It seems kinda tacky to me. Building a big old house for some gods out in the middle of the forest.” 

“You don’t like this place?” Kenny asked, relieved. Butters shrugged.

“It’s interesting,” he said. “And pretty, but it gives me the same feeling I get when I go to them big cathedrals in Europe. I start thinking about how poor most people in those countries were when they were built.” 

“What does Cartman think about that?” Kenny asked, unable to resist. 

“He agrees with me,” Butters said, and he didn’t seem to understand why Kenny laughed in surprise. “Oh, well, sure,” he said. “Eric doesn’t give two damns about the poor. But he doesn’t like religion either. I think he’s just jealous that nobody’s building temples to worship him, though.” 

“Cartman would be jealous of God, yeah.” 

“What do you believe in?” Butters asked, taking Kenny off guard. They were leaning on a railing near the binoculars, peering at the large creek that the temple compound overlooked. It was pretty, and the view was jungle-like, no buildings in sight. Kenny took a picture and sent it to Kyle while he thought about how to answer Butters’ question. He captioned the picture: Hanging with some gnarly old monks, thinking of you.

“I believe in Hell,” Kenny said, wishing that he could tell somebody, anybody about what it was really like. 

“Like -- the Christian version of Hell?” Butters asked. He looked concerned.

“No, not like that version. Well. Maybe a little bit like that. Don’t worry, I believe in Heaven, too. Um, can we go? I’m starting to understand why Cartman gets creeped out by this place.” 

“Oh, Eric’s afraid of his own shadow,” Butters said. “But yeah, let’s beat cheeks. I’m about ready for some food.” 

Kenny’s phone buzzed with a response from Kyle as they made their way back to the parking lot. It was just a little after six o’clock at home, so Kenny figured Kyle had finished most of a gin and tonic by now. 

_Looks nice. LUCKY YOU!_

And then:

_Sorry, didn’t mean to type that in all caps._

I forgive you, Kenny sent back, grinning down at his phone. 

_WHAT A RELIEF_

“Who’s that you’re chatting with?” Butters asked as they climbed into his car. 

“Just Kyle.” 

“How are him and Stan doing?”

“Ah. Hard to say. Okay, I think?” 

“Hmm.” Butters backed the car out of the muddy lot and headed toward the highway. As soon as they were away from the shadow of the monastery, Kenny felt better. He had considered, in some of his more confident and also not finest moments, that he might be some kind of demi-god-like creature himself, and he wondered now if the spirits in that place hadn’t wanted him around. He had never quite felt comfortable in any place of worship, but that probably had more to do with the concept of judgment and conservative living than anything else. “Well, it gets hard in your thirties,” Butters said. 

“Sorry?”

“Relationships. Even real long-standing ones. I mean, if even Stan and Kyle are having troubles, I guess me and you shouldn’t feel so bad about our domestic situations busting up, huh?”

“You shouldn’t feel bad at all,” Kenny said, not wanting to discuss his own divorce at the moment. “Cartman’s cheating was never your fault.” 

“Sure, sure. But sometimes I can be pretty mean to old Eric. He’s real delicate.” 

“Butters, you’re not mean.”

“Oh, Kenny, you only see the good in people! In me, anyway, seems like. Eric’s pretty difficult, but he was my one true love, or so I thought. And I didn’t always embrace his difficulties.” 

“He’s beyond difficult,” Kenny said, thrown sideways by that ‘one true love’ mention. “He’s selfish, aggressively crude, and borderline delusional when it comes to how he thinks the world should work. If you got frustrated with that and sniped at him on occasion, that’s not something you should feel bad about. At all.” 

“Well, I do,” Butters said. “Or, I did. Now it’s just like-- I’m a free man!” He gave Kenny a sort of wild-eyed grin that made him a bit nervous. “Don’t you feel that way, now that you’re single again?”

“Not really,” Kenny said, increasingly bummed out by this conversation. “I miss being half of a couple.” 

“Aw, but you’re so handsome and sweet. You could have anyone!” 

“Apparently not.” 

“What do you mean, apparently not?”

“Butters! I’m into you. Have we not established that?”

“Oh.” Butters kept his eyes on the road, but he was smiling. “Yeah, I guess I know that. But I wasn’t sure how serious you were.” 

“I’m serious,” Kenny said, staring until Butters looked back at him. “Believe me.” 

“But we just now reconnected! I feel like, hmm. Don’t take this the wrong way, but even though we grew up together and had our special time together on Kauai as kids and all that, I kinda feel like you don’t really know me that well?”

“How can you say that?” Kenny needed a drink. His stomach was churning; he had actually thought that he would just sweep in with his good looks and comparative sweetness and whisk Butters away from Cartman with ease. The full extent of his blind, dangerously naive faith in this plan hadn’t quite occurred to him until he realized that it wasn’t going to happen like that at all. “I mean, I know we’ve lived in separate states for a while,” Kenny said. “But I’m back now.” He felt idiotic, like he’d flopped his dick out and Butters had reared away in horror, which had happened to Kenny more times than he could accurately recall. “I guess I want to get reacquainted, and-- But not in a casual way, oh, jesus. I don’t even know what I’m saying, I’m blathering.” 

“You’re just hungry is all,” Butters said, reaching over to pat Kenny’s thigh. “I bet some lau lau pork from Pono Market will help.” 

“Help with what?” Kenny asked. “I’m throwing myself at you like a fool. I’m sorry.”

“Shh, you’re no fool. I just didn’t realize, um. How invested you were, but. Well. I love being with you!” Butters blurted this, suddenly loud. “And you’re the best looking fella who’s ever shown interest in me, that’s for sure.”

“But you’re still hung up on Cartman, so--”

“I didn’t say that!” Butters glowered at Kenny. It was unintentionally cute. “Don’t put words in my mouth, mister. You’ve got a bad habit of thinking you know other people’s minds better than you really do, you know that?”

“I think you told me that once, yeah.” Kenny was pretty sure it was the Butters in his sex dreams who had pointed that out, but even so. “Sorry.” 

“It’s all right,” Butters said, his usual warm smile for Kenny returning. “I don’t think you do it because you’re smug or mean or anything like that. Like how Kyle thinks he knows everything about people,” he added, mumbling.

“Kyle doesn’t do it to be mean,” Kenny said, though Kyle’s judgments of people weren’t necessarily kind. He felt defensive of Kyle anyway, and wondered when he had last even interacted with Butters. Perhaps they had clashed in the grocery store over the last box of stuffing or something. Kenny could imagine the sort of comments Kyle might have made to Butters about Cartman over the years, and about their relationship. He’d referred to Butters as a sex slave, that night when Kenny agreed to the Hawaii trip. “I’m sorry if I’ve been like that,” Kenny said. “I know I’m not always right. I know.” 

“You’re also too hard on yourself,” Butters said, patting Kenny’s leg again. “It’s like the opposite of Eric. If I criticize him he goes into a litany of excuses and defenses. You just agree with me right away!”

“I don’t -- do that.” Kenny was reaching the limits of his patience for being psychoanalyzed. Butters had more in common with Kyle than he realized, maybe. 

“I do want us to reconnect,” Butters said. “I mean, beyond this crazy situation, for real. Me and you always had something kinda special, didn’t we? Even before Kauai. I guess that’s why I picked you to go with me, and why you were willing.”

“When did you start feeling that way with Cartman?” Kenny asked. “I mean, like you had some kind of special bond with him.” He wanted to add Like he was your one true love, but didn’t think he could stomach repeating that phrase in reference to Cartman. He also wanted to ask Was it before or after the blow job, but that seemed too crass.

“I’m not sure,” Butters said. “Sometime when we were still kids, before all the romance. I think I used to be kind of scared of Eric, and then one day I realized there was nothing to be afraid of, that he was just a mixed-up kid like me, and lonely, too, like me.” 

“You were lonely?” 

“Well, as an only child, you know? We had that in common.” 

Kenny nodded, sorry that he had again managed to bring the subject of the conversation back around to Cartman, and when Butters had been talking about the special bond he’d had with Kenny. He was glad when they parked in downtown Kaap’a, glad when the line at Pono Market moved quickly, and elated to finally be able to sit down and start shoveling food into his mouth. Everything Kenny sampled was as delicious as Butters had promised, and they smiled at each other periodically during their mostly silent meal, focused on cleaning out takeaway boxes while they sat together at a tiny table outside the Market. When Butters rested his bare ankle against Kenny’s under the table, Kenny flushed with embarrassed pleasure, shivering at the feeling of Butters’ leg hairs tangling with his. 

“I’m gonna go back through the line and get something for Eric,” Butters said when they were finished. “This is his favorite spot. He’ll have a fit if we don’t bring something back for him.” 

“So you’re coming back to the condo?” Kenny asked, trying not to be disheartened by Butters’ renewed interest in getting take away for Cartman. 

“Yeah, I’d rather hang out with you guys than Bev and Sean,” Butters said. “They’re nice and all, but mostly they just talk about how hard it is to manage all their different rental properties. Makes me kind of sad, thinking about the ones me and Eric lost. And I do love that condo. It was my favorite.” 

When Butters had procured a lunch plate of lau lau and spicy poke for Cartman, they drove back up north. Kenny felt contemplative and a little confused but not upset. The clouds had cleared off and the day was beautiful, the water along the coastal highway sparkling and the radio reception coming in smoothly. The folk song that was playing featured a kind of cooing, melodious hum from the singer, and it was lullaby-like, soothing. Kenny was full and feeling happy, despite his uncertainty about the future with Butters and in general, and he thought about taking a nap when they reached the condo, wishing he could cuddle up in that opium bed with Butters.

Cartman was awake when they arrived, but this development seemed recent, his hair still mussed and his t-shirt hanging over only a pair of sagging boxer shorts. He received the lunch from Pono Market with almost tearful gratitude.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said, marveling at it for a moment before picking up a piece of lau lau. “This shit is the fucking shit.” 

“Don’t use your hands,” Butters said, and he brought Cartman a fork. They were all gathered around the breakfast buffet, Kenny sort of wondering why they were watching Cartman eat. His urge to nap had passed, but he wasn’t sure what else to do with himself. 

“I might take the Jeep out to one of the beaches,” he said when Cartman had nosily decimated the lau lau and was starting in on the poke. “It’s so nice out.” 

“Yeah, we should go to Hanelei!” Butters said. “We can bring the boogie boards, if Tyrone still has them.” 

“He does,” Cartman said, speaking with his mouth full. “They’re out there in a pile with all the rest of the beach shit, by the jacuzzi.” 

“Great,” Kenny said, and he drummed his fingers on the counter. “So, you want to take off?” He was speaking to Butters, hoping that Cartman would be left here with his food. 

“Wait five seconds, asshole,” Cartman said before Butters could respond. “I’ll come with you. I need to get some sun.” 

“Is your tummy feeling better?” Butters asked. 

“My stomach’s fine,” Cartman said, staring down at his side of macaroni salad as he shoveled some in. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Cartman insisted on driving, and Kenny was glad for this when Butters joined him in the backseat. Cartman snarled at them a little in the rearview mirror, but soon they were driving toward Hanalei town and parking near the stretch of beach along the bay. The sky had grown overcast again, and when they arrived on the mostly empty beach to find that lifeguards had put up signs forbidding any swimming because of a rip tide, Kenny felt irrational rage toward Cartman, as if his delaying this trip had ruined everything. Probably the rip tide had already been active, but at least the sun had been out, back when Kenny first had the idea to come here. 

“Goddammit!” Cartman said, standing with his boogie board at the edge of the surf. “This is bullshit.” He turned to Kenny and Butters, and Kenny waited to hear him declare that they would be going in anyway, damn the signs. “What’s even the point of the ocean?” Cartman asked. He seemed serious, and Kenny laughed when Butters did, not sure if they were laughing at Cartman or not. 

“We came from it,” Kenny said. “For one thing.” 

“We?” Cartman gave Kenny a look like he’d just claimed that he and Butters were selkies or something. 

“Humans, Eric,” Butters said. “The creatures of the land.” 

“The creatures of the land?” Now Cartman laughed, and Kenny held in a guffaw when Butters didn’t join him. “Jesus, well. What are we going to do now?” 

After some debate and some wandering along the windy beach, they decided on taro smoothies and returning to the condo, where Butters decided to get into the hot tub, using one of the bathing suits Cartman had brought for him from home. Kenny changed into his own suit, and by the time he was heading for the jacuzzi, Cartman had joined Butters there, both of them still sipping from their smoothies.

“C’mon in,” Butters said when Kenny lingered between the patio door and the jacuzzi, feeling awkward. “We can all fit.” He sounded a little doubtful, and Kenny shared his skepticism, but he was determined not to let Cartman edge him out, so he stepped into the jacuzzi. Cartman took up most of its back wall and spilled into the middle somewhat, but it was a pretty big tub, and Kenny managed to sink into the opposite right corner, across from Butters, without brushing up against either of them under the water.

“How about Hukilau Lanai tonight?” Cartman asked, jabbing Butters in the shoulder with the end of his smoothie straw. 

“We’ll never get a reservation,” Butters said. “That place is always packed.” 

“Leave it to me,” Cartman said. “I can get us in.” 

“Am I invited?” Kenny asked, annoyed. Cartman sighed. 

“Of course!” Butters said, and he slid his feet over, resting them on Kenny’s knees under the water. The water in the jacuzzi seemed to suddenly grow twenty degrees hotter, and Kenny could feel the searing heat from Cartman’s angry stare, too, but he put a hand on top of one of Butters’ feet, as casually as possible, as if this gesture hadn’t just made his heart grow three sizes and his dick a little stiff. 

“What’s Hukilau Lanai?” Kenny asked, finally looking at Cartman. His expression was surprisingly hard to read; he looked slightly confused, mildly hurt, and faintly amused. But maybe Kenny was just doing that thing again, thinking he knew someone’s mind better than he really did. That could be a truly fatal mistake, where Cartman was concerned. 

“It’s a restaurant on the east coast,” Butters said when Cartman didn’t answer. “Not too far from where we went today, in the town near the monastery.” 

“How’d you like the monks?” Cartman asked, still staring at Kenny. 

“They were fine.” Kenny left his hand on Butters’ foot, but part of him wanted to stop touching Butters altogether, as good as it felt. It was still strange to be doing even this right in front of Cartman, who was nodding to himself, smirking a little.

“Did that place make you want to convert?” Cartman asked. 

“Me?” Kenny glanced at Butters. He was staring at Kenny mildly, as if he was curious to hear his answer. “No, uh. I didn’t like it, actually. It felt weird to be there, as a non-believer.” 

“Ah, a non-believer, are you? Hmph. So what do you think happens to bad people when they die? Nothing?” 

“Well, most people go to Hell,” Kenny said, thrown enough by this question that he couldn’t help giving an honest answer. “But it’s like Earth. It can suck, it’s designed to destroy you, but if you know how to make the best of a shitty situation, you can carve a nice little niche for yourself.” 

“In Hell?” Cartman asked, sputtering a little. 

“Sure,” Kenny said. He glanced at Butters. 

“That’s a nice thought,” Butters said. 

“A niche in Hell is a nice thought?” Cartman barked. He seemed to be taking this personally, turning red. Butters shrugged. 

“Not just Hell, but anyplace that’s not perfect. I like the idea that a good attitude goes a long way.” 

“Oh, right.” Cartman rolled his eyes. “I can just see you in Hell, all cheerful and shit. Please! You’d go to Heaven, anyway.” 

“I’m not an innocent flower,” Butters said, frowning. “And you’re not necessarily damned, even if you were unfaithful. You could ask for forgiveness, you know. Everyone who sincerely wants forgiveness gets it. I do believe in that.” 

“Bullshit!” Cartman said. “You’re the stubbornest grudge-holder I’ve ever met in my life! Where’s my forgiveness, huh?” 

“I’d give you some if you were capable of a sincere apology, or even admitting what you did!” 

“Maybe I should go,” Kenny said, still holding on to Butters’ foot under the water. Butters shook his head. 

“No, stay,” he said. “Let’s change the subject.” 

“Butters doesn’t like confrontation,” Cartman said. “That’s how come he ran away to Kauai. Again!” 

“He wasn’t running away, the first time,” Kenny said, before Butters could explode. He gave Butters’ foot a little squeeze. “If you’re talking about when we were kids. His parents sent him here, if you’ll recall. To become a man.” 

“Right.” Cartman snorted. “How could I forget Butters’ all-important man-becoming ritual. How about you, Kenny?” Cartman narrowed his eyes. “When did you become a man, exactly?”

“Are you drunk?” Kenny asked, laughing. 

“He thinks we did some kind of sex ritual,” Butters said, his feet sliding off Kenny’s knees as he spoke. “I’ve told him that’s ridiculous, but he won’t listen.” 

“Seems suspicious, is all,” Cartman said. “You were ‘becoming a man’ and you picked the most sexually experienced kid in school to-- Help you along, with that.” 

“Eric, goddamn it, that’s disgusting! We were still kids, really, and I don’t know how many ways I can tell you that there was nothing sexual about my coming of age ceremony!” 

“Really, dude,” Kenny said, feeling the cold smoothie that he’d sucked down too fast shifting precariously in his stomach. “That’s just sick. And I wasn’t sexually experienced.” 

“You were so! That one chick blew you!” 

“She didn’t, she just said she would--” Kenny’s memory of this was hazy. It seemed impossible, but he remembered looking forward to it, and dying shortly thereafter. “I think I need to get out,” he said, the creeping flush from the hot water beginning to grow uncomfortable.

“Eric,” Butters said as Kenny climbed out, dripping all over the patio. “You’re not being a very gracious host.” 

“Huh?” Cartman loudly sucked up the last of his smoothie. “What the hell are you talking about? Who am I hosting?”

“Kenny!” 

“It’s okay,” Kenny said. He was ready for a shower and some time away from these two, though what he really wanted was to be in the jacuzzi with only Butters, preferably while getting handsy with each other under the water and exchanging smoothie-flavored kisses. 

“Kenny’s not my houseguest,” Cartman said. 

“Sure he is,” Butters said. “And you made him uncomfortable enough to exit the jacuzzi.” 

“It’s all right,” Kenny said, wanting to point out that now Butters was the one putting words in someone else’s mouth. “I just want to take a shower and a nap. What time do you guys want to leave for dinner?”

“Early,” Cartman said. “Around six.” 

“Great.” Kenny left, wondering if they would talk about him when he was gone. He wasn’t sure if he’d want that or not. On one hand, he didn’t like the idea of being a subject of discussion between those two, just like he hated the idea of Stan and Kyle whispering their worries about him together in bed at night, but it would also sting not to be talked about at all, easily forgotten once he was out of sight. He’d felt that way often as a kid, like his friends got along just fine without him. It was an essential aspect of his curse: being forgotten, over and over. He told himself he was okay with it, but he felt a little torn up in the shower, and had a hard time getting to sleep when he stretched out naked in the opium bed, though he was very tired and it was the perfect time of day for a nap. He could hear the palms rustling just outside the window, and when a light rain began to fall he finally drifted off. 

He dreamed that they were kids again, back in South Park, trudging through waist-deep snow. Stan and Kyle were up ahead, Butters trailing them and Cartman just in front of Kenny, panting audibly and struggling to keep up. Kenny caught up to him and thought of running forward. It was snowing, blowing sideways and blurring his view of Stan’s red poof ball hat and Kyle’s green ushanka. Pretty soon they would be out of sight, and it was getting hard to see Butters through the storm, too. 

“C’mon,” Kenny said, grabbing Cartman’s arm. “Hurry up, they’re leaving us behind.” 

“I can’t!” Cartman said, angrily, as if this was Kenny’s fault. “Where did all this fucking snow come from? Huh? This is supposed to be Hawaii!” 

As if the word ‘Hawaii’ had magically transformed them, they were suddenly both adults, standing in waist deep snow in beach shorts and t-shirts now. 

“Fuck!” Cartman said, yanking his arm from Kenny’s grip. “Now you’ve done it!” 

“What did I do?” Kenny asked. He knew it wasn’t his fault, and yet he still felt responsible, already, for Cartman’s imminent death. Cartman started wailing like a child, and then he was a child again, still heavy but small enough to fit in Kenny’s arms when Kenny lifted him out of the snow. 

“It’s no fair!” Cartman said, sniffling as Kenny carried him along. “How come you always get to be the big one?”

“Being big isn’t as great as you think,” Kenny said, thinking of his dick, and then he woke up to the sound of Butters knocking softly on his door, asking him if he was ready to leave for dinner. 

Again, Cartman insisted on driving. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were lingering, and as they drove south the towering palms along the side of the road were tousled by a strong wind, giving off a slightly menacing vibe when Kenny peered up at them from the passenger seat. Butters had insisted that Kenny ride up front with Cartman, for some reason, and he was playing with his phone in the backseat, smiling down at the screen while he sent texts. He leaned forward at one point to show Kenny pictures of a very white terrier with a variety of dog toys in his mouth. 

“This is my mom’s new dog,” he explained. “His name is Leo. You think I should take that personally?”

“Why would you?” Kenny asked, and he felt stupid when he remembered that Butters’ actual name was Leopold; it was easy to forget. Butters just grinned and shrugged. 

“He’s the son she always wanted,” he said. “Obedient and adoring!”

“You were both,” Cartman said. “Fuck that bitch if she couldn’t see it.”

“Don’t call her a bitch,” Butters said, but he was still smiling, looking like maybe he appreciated that remark. Kenny wished he had said it first; he’d been thinking it, too. 

It had started raining again by the time they pulled up to the restaurant, which was on the ground floor of an unimpressive but warm chain hotel on the east coast. The dining room was crowded and lively, but Cartman was, as promised, somehow successful in getting a table, and they were led through a dimly-lit, crowded dining room to a spot in the middle of the restaurant. Several bus boys were closing the flaps of the large white tent that covered the outdoor lanai, protecting the diners from gusts of rain as the storm picked up outside. 

“Too bad we don’t have a view of the water,” Butters said. “I love watching the sunset from their outdoor tables.” 

“It’s fine,” Kenny said. He felt like he hadn’t been on a real date in years, and while he didn’t like thinking of this outing as a date, it was nice to be having dinner out in a fancy-ish place with Butters at his side, smiling sweetly while an assistant waiter delivered a basket of complimentary bread. Kenny fucking loved complimentary bread, always would. Cartman seemed to share his enthusiasm for it, and they both dug in as soon as the basket was set down, not skimping on the butter. 

Cartman seemed to have regained his appetite following his illness that morning: he ate half the basket of bread, most of the crab dip they ordered as an appetizer, and a mixed seafood platter that was bigger than Kenny and Butters’ dishes combined. Kenny had the mahi, which was covered in a buttery sauce that he scraped off the plate along with the last of his rice. There was a bottle of rose on the table, and Butters kept refilling Kenny’s glass, insisting that he’d had enough to drink himself and would volunteer as the designated driver. Cartman wasn’t shy about refilling his own glass, meanwhile. 

“Kyle once told me he can’t drink pink wine anymore,” Kenny said. “Because he finished a whole bottle of white zinfandel when he was nineteen and spent the next morning puking it up.” 

“Well, that’s a charming story,” Cartman said. “Doesn’t surprise me to hear that the Jew can’t hold his liquor.” 

“Don’t call him that,” Kenny said. “You’re too old to be so openly disgusting. At least try to hide your bigotry in public.” 

“It’s not bigotry! He’s a Jew, isn’t he? That’s a fact!” 

“Eric, you know what he means,” Butters said. “Knock it off.” 

“Jesus, sorry. Didn’t realize you two were such sensitive flowers.” 

“Are you like, an actual Nazi?” Kenny asked, drunk enough to vocalize this. He’d always wondered. “Or do you just say this stuff because you think you’re funny?”

“How the fuck am I gonna be a Nazi?” Cartman said, a little too loudly. “They’d have cut my balls off, or lobotomized me, or whatever.” 

“He means because he’s gay,” Butters said when Kenny looked confused.

“Ah.” 

“I’ve seen the documentaries,” Cartman said, and he actually seemed to grow gloomy about it. “That shit was fucked up.” He stared down into his wine, frowning. “You think that’s what they do to people in Hell?” he asked, directing this question to Kenny. 

“They?” Kenny said, confused again. 

“I’m being figurative!” Cartman said. “If Hell exists, do you think it’s non-stop torture? That seems more likely than, uh. Whatever you were saying before, about building a nice little life for yourself on the edge of a lava lake.” 

“Why are you so concerned about Hell?” Kenny asked, though he supposed the answer was fairly obvious. Cartman gave him a dry stare. “What, you believe in it?” 

“I worry about death, Kenny,” Cartman said, slamming his wine glass down. “Maybe you can’t relate. Maybe you think you’re going to live forever on a fluffy cloud, strumming a harp. Ha! I’ll bet.” 

Cartman sank down into his chair, and for a second Kenny thought he was going to burst into tears.

“Eric,” Butters said. “There’s no reason to be so morbid. We’re having a nice dinner.” 

“A nice-- Jesus! You sound like your fucking mother.” 

Butters went dark then, and Kenny understood why, though he agreed with Cartman that dinner conversation shouldn’t be limited to pleasant subjects. In the McCormick household talk at the dinner table had been completely uncensored, and Kenny had been happy as long as plates and glasses weren’t thrown across the table when the discussion grew heated. 

“I don’t think I’m going to Heaven,” Kenny said. “Don’t assume you know my mind, uh. Better than you really do.” 

Cartman snorted. “Christ,” he said. “Who would want to? I don’t want to know what goes on in the dark nether-regions of of Kenny McCormick’s psyche.” 

“You think I’m dark?” Kenny was flattered. 

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Cartman said. He grabbed the wine bottle and poured more for himself, then surprised Kenny by pouring the last of it into his glass. “Here’s to your unknowable mind,” Cartman said, hoisting his glass. 

“And to yours, I guess,” Kenny said, uncomfortably. They toasted and drank. Kenny turned to Butters. He seemed cautiously intrigued by this exchange, leaning forward a little, elbows on the table. 

“I’m having Scotch for dessert,” Cartman announced. “Kenny?” 

“Yeah?” 

“You joining me?”

Kenny felt a bit like he was making some kind of pact with a demon, but Cartman had nothing on the demons he’d known, so he agreed. The scotch they got was something expensive, and Kenny tried to savor his, but he was growing drunk enough not to have a real concept of time. 

“I think I should herd you two on home now,” Butters said when they had both finished their drinks. “Looks like there’s a break in the storm.” 

“A break in the storm.” Cartman groaned, then belched. “Yeah, great.” 

“I’m ready to go,” Kenny said, nervous about how much this meal had already cost, and about who would pay. He was not drunk enough to feel unashamed when Butters pulled out a credit card. Cartman seemed to wilt in reaction to this, too, watching as Butters slipped his card into the black billfold when it arrived. 

“I’m treating next time,” Cartman said when the waiter had taken the card away. Butters shrugged. 

“How many next times are there gonna be?” he asked. “I thought you told me Tyrone had some renters arriving on Halloween?”

“He does. But that’s-- What, what day is this?”

“It’s the thirtieth,” Butters said. He gave Kenny an incredulous look, but this was news to him, too. He’d lost track of time in a more general sense as well. “Halloween is tomorrow, Eric.” 

“Fuck! Are you-- Seriously?”

“Yeah, I’m seriously.” Butters sighed and thanked the waiter when he returned with a credit slip for him to sign. “Look,” he said, staring down at the bill. “Um, well, shoot. When are ya’ll flying home?”

“Whenever we fuckin’ want,” Cartman said. He was getting loud again, and people were beginning to turn in their table’s direction. “I got one way tickets.” 

“Oh, Eric. Of course you did.” Butters shook his head and jotted a surprisingly stingy figure on the tip line. He closed the billfold with a snap and frowned at Cartman, then at Kenny. “Well, you two. It would be tacky to even ask, but I could see if Bev and Sean would be okay with you sharing my room at their place for a few nights. That is, if-- If you’re not ready to go home yet.” 

“I’m not ready to go,” Kenny said. Cartman was scowling, maybe on the verge of pouting, but Kenny couldn’t imagine he wanted to leave now either, with nothing resolved, although what sort of resolution was even possible at this point was beyond Kenny’s reasoning, especially in his current state. 

“Eric,” Butters said. “What do you think?” 

“Those fucks will say no,” Cartman said. “Fucking Bev and Sean, god.” 

“They’re nice people, Eric, and they’re letting me stay for free! Now, I don’t know how much money you won on your baseball bet, but if you check in to even the cheapest motel on the south shore you’ll be spending at least three hundred dollars for just a few days. And I know you don’t like cheap motels. Bev and Sean have me in the upstairs bedroom. Remember?”

“Yeah.” Cartman glanced at Kenny, then back at Butters. “I remember me and you having some pretty excellent sex there.” 

“So would you come if they were were okay with having you?” Butters asked, as if that statement didn’t bother him at all. Kenny didn’t suppose it should, necessarily, but at any rate it bothered Kenny. 

“Whatever, yeah, sure!” Cartman was shouting again, and throwing his napkin onto the table. Kenny was surprised that it had ever been in his lap. “I’ll cast my fate to the fucking wind at this point, why not? Might as well! Bev and Sean’s guest room, sure-- Wait, but where would Kenny stay?” 

“Well, with us.” Butters shrugged. “It’s a California king.” 

“I could sleep on the floor,” Kenny said while Cartman sputtered wordlessly for a moment. 

“Nonsense.” Butters dabbed at his lips with his napkin, placed it neatly on the table and stood. “After all, we shared a bed last night, didn’t we? The three of us? And the world didn’t come to an end.” 

With that, he marched away from the table. Kenny was almost afraid to see Cartman’s expression, and he was relieved when it was pure bewilderment. 

“I can sleep on the floor,” Kenny said, again, to clarify that he wasn’t interested in whatever was maybe or maybe not being proposed. 

“Like anybody doubts your ability to sleep on the ground like an animal.” Cartman groaned and hoisted himself up from his seat. “C’mon, let’s go. Those old fucks probably won’t let me stay there anyway, let alone you.” 

But by the time they were getting ready for bed that night, Butters had spoken to Bev and Sean and had gotten their permission to bring two friends to their condo the following day. Apparently Bev and Sean were leaving for Maui on the day after Halloween, and after that they would have the condo to themselves. 

“So we’ll only have to share the room for one night,” Butters said. He was in the kitchen with Kenny, who was trying to drink enough water to stave off a hangover. He was also waiting to see where Butters would be sleeping tonight. Cartman had already passed out in the master bedroom. “I should drive back,” Butters said when he read this question on Kenny’s face. 

“It’s late,” Kenny said. “And raining. Just-- take the opium bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“But the guest room is yours.” 

“Not really. I mean, it’s your house. Or, it was.” 

Butters sighed and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll take the couch. The guest room is your space. I respect that.” 

Kenny thought that was a little overdramatic, but he was too tired to think of how to refute it. He turned to make sure that the master bedroom doorway was still dark, quiet and empty of Cartman’s looming presence. 

“You could share the bed with me,” Kenny said, keeping his voice low. “But. I guess that would be asking for trouble.” 

“Tomorrow night we’ll share a bed,” Butters said. He smiled and stood on his tip-toes to kiss Kenny’s cheek. “Now go on, mister,” he said, lingering with his face close to Kenny’s. “Get some rest.” 

“I want to kiss you,” Kenny whispered. 

Butters smiled, but he lowered back down to the soles of his feet and moved away a little, placing his hand on Kenny’s chest as if to keep him in place. 

“I want to kiss you, too,” he whispered back, lifting Kenny’s hopes out of the gutter somewhat. “But if we do that now, I’m afraid, um. We might get out of control. You’ve had a lot to drink, and I’m, well. I haven’t had sex in months, to tell you the truth.” 

“Months?” This meant Butters had already stopped sleeping with Cartman before bolting for Kauai. “I mean-- Me too.” For Kenny it was coming up on a year, actually. 

“Let’s just wait for now,” Butters said. “This isn’t the time or the place for kissing.” 

“Okay.” Kenny knew he was right, but he still had enough alcohol in his system to infuse this knowledge with childish disappointment. He moved away from Butters, toward the guest room. “You’re sure you’re okay on the couch?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. G’night, Ken.” Butters winked. “Tomorrow will be fun.”

“Halloween,” Kenny said, nodding, though he was pretty sure Butters wasn’t referring to the holiday. 

Alone in the guest room, on his back in the opium bed with the door shut, Kenny considered beating off to the thought of getting out of control with Butters, putting him over the kitchen counter and fucking him shamelessly while Cartman snored away in the master bedroom, but even this fantasy wasn’t doing it for him. Butters deserved better for his first time with the second person he’d ever slept with in his life, for one thing. Soon they would be in the south, and things would be a little less fraught, away from the condo that had once been Butters’ and Cartman’s love nest.

Kenny tried to tell himself so, anyway. 

 

**


End file.
